


Stark Reality

by Tobi_Black



Series: Til the End of the Line [3]
Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies), Hawkeye (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (Endorsed) Corporate Espionage, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Clint Is a Good Bro, Clumsy!Clint, Foul Language - Mostly Bucky, Gen, Iron Man 1, M/M, Magical Realism, Male-Female Friendship, Pizza Dog does not help with Clint's clumsiness, Pre-Iron Man 1, Reincarnation, Scott's Merry Band of Thieves, Small(er)!Steve, Steve Rogers Has PTSD, Strong Female Characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-11-05 00:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11002023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobi_Black/pseuds/Tobi_Black
Summary: The ice could not hold Steve Rogers forever. Not with fury boiling his blood and the howling of the Great Dog echoing in his ears. Nothing would stop him from finding Bucky.He would wake.He would wake almost seventy years after first going into the ice, and the world would not be the same. He would not be the same.





	1. Returning from a Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return of Steve Rogers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in honor of Memorial Day weekend, I will post what I have of Part Two.  
> The name of Part Two honestly was giving me grief, because I was trying to find wonderful wordplay that fit with how I have Part Two planned.

Off the coast of Greenland, a freighter was cutting through the ice, having been thrown off course a bit for a storm and thus was on the other side of the country than their normal route, when a piece of frozen metal drifted up in their wake.

The captain, cautious and unnerved to find a piece of steel floating up from the ocean, had demanded that his crew search the ship for any possible holes in the hull. They found none.

One of his crew fished out the piece of metal – it read a name the world over recognized: _Valkyrie_.

The blood had drained from his face at the thought he had disturbed the final resting place of the hero that had freed his mother from the grips of Hydra.

Then he had thought of how proud his mother would be that he had ‘found’ and brought home Captain America, so that she could pay her final respects to the man who had saved her life, and radioed in his discovery.

Twelve hours later, the _Valkyrie_ is pulled from the ice.

The man who went in couldn’t help his shriek at finding that only half the insides were still frozen, and that near the controls was Captain America, encased in ice, looking _almost_ exactly like the posters had depicted him as.

 _Almost_.

He wasn’t the only one that shrieked when they found that the ice that had remained inside, was already beginning to melt once it was free of the frigid water, warmed by the body encased inside.

The Captain was alive after having been frozen almost seventy years.

~

Slowly, things had begun to filter through beyond _cold, wet_ , and with it, an increased awareness.

Steve had never lost _full_ awareness in all these years under the ice, just merely that there was _less_ to be _aware of_. Or at least, beyond awareness _of himself_.

He had felt the lessening feeling of being surrounded, of _cold and wet_ all around him. Felt as the ice had thinned to just his immediate vicinity. Dimly heard a scream.

The scream would have made his heart beat faster if he still hadn’t been still a frozen mass.

With seventy years’ worth of time of existing, just barely alive, it had been possible for him to push his body to wake faster in small increments after that.

He had been at war when he had gone under, he didn’t know how long it had been, if he was being rescued or captured; he strove to wake faster but took care to hide the signs in case it was the latter.

As such, when his awareness _increased_ to more minute details, such as hearing the faint sounds of a familiar broadcaster of a Brooklyn baseball game in ’42, a game that he had gone with Bucky to, smelt new plaster, _didn’t_ hear medical equipment amongst the ten or so heartbeats nearby, _didn’t_ hear the groaning of wounded men, he didn’t even think _rescue_.

The moment he was able to twitch his fingers to his will, curl them into a fist, he opened his eyes to a pale beige room with a radio playing that baseball game, saw a woman in clothing that _looked_ like a nurse except that neither he nor his mother had ever worn such a uniform, particularly one that _didn’t_ have the scent of antiseptic and blood clinging to it no matter how many times it was washed.

He didn’t wait for her to speak more than a softly accented, “Welcome-“, picking through her annunciation and it’s very faint Eastern European undertones, before he was surging forward.

He shoved her to the side, distantly aware that it was with a familiar skinny shoulder than with a thickly muscled one, fingers dancing across her frame to snag a knife strapped to the back of her thigh beneath her skirt without her notice, before he darted out of the room.

The fact that his breathe was still strong was the only thing that keeping from outright panicking as he plunged through a plaster wall, catching sight of a much smaller frame than he had gone under with.

He remembered Bucky asking if the serum was permanent, remembered his own answer, _‘So far’_.

The speed and strength he was still displaying was perhaps telling him that the _serum_ was holding strong, but clearly something was wrong. Something had _gone wrong_ if he was back in his little body.

If Bucky wasn’t missing, possibly captured, or at least alive and safe and maybe even happy, he might have dropped to his knees that very second and thanked the Lord. Bucky _wasn’t there_ though, and that he had to go save his ass ( _again_ ), and that meant this small body could be a liability. Was a liability. At least until he found and tested it’s limits. Re-learned to fight with it.

The panic was for the horrible feeling in his gut that said that he was already too late for Bucky, that said every second that he wasn’t out searching, was one more minute of pain and torture for Bucky.

He had no illusions; he knew Bucky was a grade-A asshole at the best of times, could be absolutely horrible when _it wasn’t_ good times, and being re-captured by an enemy with possibly being told he’d died, Bucky would be _awful_.

He had seen a little of it after Azzano, saw some almost self-inflicted types of wounds, remembered how Bucky would do whatever it took to get somebody mad at him, get them to hurt him when he was feeling like it wasn’t worth living anymore. He had no illusions; Bucky would try and get them to kill him.

They had never talked about how Steve had known that during Azzano, when Bucky thought all was lost, that Bucky may have been resisting the torture, but he’d also had been smarting off and offering sarcastic commentary and directions in hopes that the pain would end, that he would be put down. Put down like a rabid animal.

They had never talked about how in the months leading up to that Fall, that Bucky had stopped thinking that they were getting home, and had started to assign new owners to his few possessions, including the company of little Asshole the cat.

Steve knew that Bucky tended to fluctuate between despair and rage when put into situations where hope was scarce.

He feared what Bucky would _allow_ Hydra to do to him if he had lost his will to live.

He barely noticed how people with guns were chasing him, were yelling; His thoughts were of Bucky.

He bared his teeth as someone tried to grasp his arm, swinging back with familiarity to draw the knifepoint from throat to sternum to slice through their clothes and lightly drawing blood, half meaning to scare them off and half meant to harm. He paid them little more attention other than to disarm them, before he was darting into the crowd beyond this building.

He saw the bright lights, the moving pictures, these thousands of people in thousands of ways of dress, talking on these little devices, with hundreds of cars of all different sizes and colors on nearly-familiar streets. The noise of all these peoples, all these cars, had him slow down to a near-standstill, trying to place what was familiar about this place here in a world that had moved on without him.

His breathing was harsh as he jumped at every little touch of careless people, but still his hands were light and sure as they grasped at things in pockets.

His eyes were wide as he saw shiny ID cards in wallets next to shiny rectangular cards, seeing that they proclaimed many of these people were from New York. His eyes were wide at seeing amounts of money more than had ever been seen in all his years combined, at this wealth that made his former pride of having earned a dollar for a piece of his own art dwindle.

He saw all these men, not afraid of touching other men and being called a fairy if the touch lingered a moment too long, saw all these women in all manners of clothes and styles, laughing freely and not afraid of being called a whore for openly kissing whoever they pleased, saw all these people that before would have never been anywhere near each other.

He saw the future here, but all he wanted was the past because that was where Bucky was.

Somebody grabbed his shoulder, “Captain-“, and he was spinning in a crouch, teeth bared and knife held aloft before he could think, staring up at a large black man with an eyepatch in a large dark coat who met his eyes without fear, “Captain, welcome back to New York.”.

He didn’t move from his crouch, eyes flickering around and around to the ten or so people that watched this man with respect, who loosely circled him, and that he could smell blood and death on. He knew they were soldiers, knew they were armed, but didn’t know if they were meant to subdue him to drag him back or in case he attacked in fear.

His eyes were sharp, fearless, as he carefully shifted to get as many of these people in his sights while never turning away from the black man, uncaring of how he was only a little bigger than his body before the serum, and surely looked like a wind could knock him over.

The man continued speaking, “You’ve been asleep nearly seventy years, Captain, the world has changed-“, but Steve wasn’t having any of these placating bullshit speeches, not when he knew Bucky was still out there, “Is this New York City? Where is Bucky? Peggy?”. He wanted to know if this familiarity was because this was New York, wanted to know if Bucky had been found in any form after he had gone down, wanted to know why Peggy, good old reliable Peggy, wasn’t the one to greet him if he was among friends.

The man frowned a little at being interrupted, but answered, “Yes, it is. Sergeant Barnes was killed in action during 1944, Captain, do you not remember this?”. Steve’s nostrils flared as he picked up the familiar base scent of a city, of his city, but it was faint, buried under a million other things here in this busy intersection, “Bucky Fell. From a train; there was no body. General Phillips found no body. Did you find _his body_?”. That frown got deeper, “No one found him. They assumed it had been eaten by scavengers and didn’t look after you crashed into the artic.”, a flicker of surprise in his eye when Steve snarled under his breathe, “ _No one brought him home?_ ”.

Steve didn’t care one bit where he was, he stalked forward with all the feral grace of Bucky, mimicking what he’d seen all his life, jabbing the handle of the knife into the man’s chest at a little below his eye level, hard, uncaring of the cut to his own hand, “Where is Peggy? I want to see Peggy, or am I a prisoner?”.

He didn’t care about the alarm that flashed in these soldier’s faces at his blood, at how he didn’t react to the pain of slicing his hand open, “Am I prisoner? Or am I free to Hunt down Bucky?”.

He just wanted to find Bucky, wanted to hear Peggy explain what had happened in the last seventy years.

His eyes flickered down after a moment, at how during all this, not once had he heard a familiar quiet _jingle_ of his dog tags against his rosary, of his blue ring against both, of his necklace of coins and bottle caps, before they narrowed dangerously at the man when he saw nothing around his neck, “Where are my things?”.

The man met his eyes for a long moment, “I think this is best done inside, Captain, before we attract the wrong type of attention.”, and Steve’s eyes narrowed further at his evasion, but followed, grip still strong on his knife as he refused to give it over, not when he hadn’t been answered about ‘ _am I a prisoner_ ’.

~

The man, Nicholas Fury, had explained about how a lot of things had changed in seventy years, and that they’d won the war not long after he had gone down.

Explained the last seventy years in a short summary with the most significant, basic things mentioned.

Explained that after the war, the SSR had no longer been needed in its original capacity, but that it still had been needed, reformed as S.H.I.E.L.D. by Peggy, and Howard Stark.

That SHIELD had been the one to find him, and that considering that he’d just woken up in basically a whole new world, they would offer him assistance.

Steve hadn’t needed to know that they would also keep him under surveillance, not when it would be stupid not to; He’d had enemies before his disappearance, and surely had a couple new ones who’d loved to get their hands on the supersoldier serum in his blood.

A doctor had explained that it had been the serum that had kept him alive all these years, kept him suspended in ice and so barely alive. Explained that the vita-rays that had strengthened his body had weakened under such stress, and that while the serum kept him healthy and strong, it may have worn off. That with his body basically cannibalizing itself to stay alive, that it had been unable to maintain the size it had become upon applying the vita-rays.

It hadn’t taken him very long at all to realize that with him being smaller, not being the _Captain America_ the world knew, that SHIELD hadn’t known what to do with him.

As such, they had shuffled him off to the side while they waited to see if the serum would make him big again, if all it took was him catching up on his calorie intake or if he was permanently caught somewhere between his two drastic sizes, shipped out to an apartment near the banking district.

Less than a day there, and he’d been restlessly pacing the apartment that once would have been a luxury house to fifteen people, unable to accept how much had changed.

He’d been told that there had been serious economic changes since ’45, but to hear a neighbor calmly discuss cutting back on their daily coffee – _four to five dollars a cup_ – to pay for the increase in rent at _nearly two thousand dollars_ , had been too much. He remembered how he’d worked for pennies, and to hear people talk about wages being more than he’d made in a year, talk about paying for things in amounts that were triple what they’d once been, had been too much. To hear people talk of buying things just to buy, not to use, about throwing things out because they didn’t like the look of it anymore, not because it was literally falling to pieces, about needing the latest piece of gadgetry as if it was more vital than food or medicine or heat in the winter, had been too much.

He was so caught up in how money and value and worth had seemed to change so very much from what he’d known, that he’d paid little attention to social matters, to politics.

He hadn’t even touched the thick file of things Fury had deemed necessary for him to know to go about this new world without standing out too much. A file that was thicker than his wrist had been, and just a few lines in he’d could see that it was full of man doing awful things for no good reason to each other in the name of good, and it had been too much.

He wanted someone to tell him of all the progress people had made.

He wanted Peggy to smile at him, and tell him he was being dramatic, before calmly telling him everything he’d need to know.

He wanted Bucky to tell him it wasn’t wrong to be freaked out about everything, wanted him to hold him as he soothed fears that he couldn’t voice about what if things had gotten _worse_. What if everything they’d fought for, _died for_ , had become nothing because the future had deemed such progress hindering to their views of how the world should be. Wanted to be told that he didn’t have to fight to fix every wrong, because others had stood up and fought the good fight and won victories for themselves.

He wanted Bucky.

SHIELD wasn’t even telling him if Peggy was alive. If any of the Howling Commandos were still alive.

 _Couldn’t_ tell him anything about Bucky, _because no one had looked_.

His thoughts went in circles as every time he glanced at the file, saw words for terrible things, wanted comfort from people he’d trusted, thought about Bucky, then wondered if he could pick out something he could connect to Bucky and so looked at the file, which started the whole cycle over again; he got angry.

He got angrier and angrier as each reminder of how _he’d been the only one to look for Bucky_ , had _demanded_ Bucky be found, and no one had given him even any empty platitudes of that there was nothing to find, no one offered him their condolences of losing the other half of his soul. He could almost-hear Bucky whisper in his ear, ‘ _They say you aren’t a fucking prisoner, then fucking tell you to fucking stay put without any fucking reasons offered. Fuck them._ ’.

Thought wryly of how even Bucky hadn’t been able to corral him completely. That Bucky would have called them _fucking fools_ for even _trying_ – without incentive, at least.

Thought that Bucky was always calling him a little shit anyways, why not prove him right again.

Why not escape SHIELD’s surveillance, and _go fucking find Bucky_.

So he had.

It hadn’t even been hard, he’d just walked out with his rosary, Bucky’s dog tags, his blue ring, his father’s watch, and his half-finished necklace of pennies and bottle caps, and slipped into the New York City crowd.

The money he’d pick-pocketed, did pick-pocket, he used to approach those that lived on street corners, and asked to trade for some of their clothes, to blend in further.

He’d completely ignored the little devices everyone seemed so obsessed with, but took note of them distantly. Wondered what they were.

He was wandering around the city, trying to link the places he’d known to the places they were now, tried to restructure his mental map of the city to something he could navigate again, when he’d wandered into an alley.

Something was gnawing at his insides, and his nerves were shot, and he wanted something that had been normal. He wanted Bucky to blow cigarette smoke in his face, smiling at him indulgently, wanted him to call him _Punk_.

He knew distantly that he was hungry, but he wasn’t craving food. He had been looking at all the kinds of foods that he could come across in this city, caught whiffs of all types of foods, from the fancy dining in restaurants, to greasy little places, to little food stalls and carts, to various types of grocer’s, and everything had been too much.

It was the only time he found himself thankful for the blandness of Army rations that he’d gotten in the war, because other than Kimmy’s cooking, that was pretty much all he’d had after the serum. Even then, he’d been used to just swallowing food without tasting it just to ease that cramp in his belly.

Here, he was having issues doing even that.

Things just tasted so _different_. He’d bought an apple and it had tasted _wrong_.

Even if he distantly recognized a certain light-headness that he meant that he had gone too long without eating, and what with the serum requiring him to eat so much more than the average man more often meant that it had been _far_ too long since he had last ate, he found he couldn’t eat.

Nothing would stay down. Distantly, he remembered how when he’d been sick as a dog, Bucky had made him light soups, things that were more liquid than anything, and thought that he should be eating lightly, and in small amounts so he kept something in his stomach.

Instead he’d found somewhere they sold cigarettes, and bought a brand he’d recognized along with some matches.

He lit up one and leaned back against a brick wall, trying to think of what his next plan of action was to be to find Bucky. He’d identified that there were two courses of action he could take – either do his best to gather as much information as he could about what efforts for Bucky had been put in, which would have varying levels of success as SHIELD had yet to be much help there, or he could find a way back to Austria and search the ravine where Bucky had Fell, and search from there, which would give him the answers he sought or be a dead end.

He was debating what his options were to _get to_ Austria, when his sharp ears caught a name he half-knew from an open window several floors above him, “ . . Tony Stark . . “.

He wondered if this Tony was a relation of Howard, before he heard more, from an older man, “Tony’s going down the same path as his father.”, answered by a voice he half-knew, who sounded a lot like Senator Pierce had, so perhaps his son, “Then we have to stop him, don’t we? We brought out the Asset to end his father.”.

Steve lingered there for a few moments longer, waiting to see if these two would give him more details, but their talk moved on to things he didn’t care much about, like the stock prices of Stark Industries and how Stark didn’t have much interest in continuing to create weapons, had been instead been spending much of his time tinkering with advanced robotics. Then he snubbed out his half-finished cigarette, tucked it back into the pack, and walked off, jaw set as he decided to look at that damn file, look further into Howard’s son, and think of a way to save him.

He briefly thought about telling SHIELD and letting them handle it, figuring that they would have resources and people who could do this with ease, but he didn’t know them, didn’t trust them.

~

After hearing about the hit on Stark Jr.’s life, Steve returned to old haunts in New Odessa, looked for anyone with familiar tattoos. It took near most of the day before he found an old bar that he recognized, one that had been run by the Mob back in the day, and when the bouncer had tried to turn him away, he’d lifted up the hem of his shirt to show a ragged-eared black cat on the bottom of his left ribs, and an older lock on his hip with ‘Сделано в CCCP’ stamped underneath an outlined five-point star, “Я пришел с миром, и хотел бы поговорить с кем бы отвечает за Братва здесь в эти дни.”

The other man had blinked for a second, as while the tattoos identifying themselves to each other were still in use, they were more of the deal of the Old Guard, and this man didn’t look old enough, “What do you want with the _pakha_ _n_ , _lavrushniki_?”.

Steve grinned wide and sharp, “To call in favors owed to my _patsani_ for his _po ponyatiyam_ , so he can be _na svobodye_.”, figuring that while he could have technically called in favors for his military service, those tended to come with strings attached, ones that he had no way of predicting. Bucky had worked for the _Bratva_ for roughly half-a-decade, but he had risen high in the ranks, was considered a _nomenklatura_ with his name down in their secret lists of members, and he’d gained his fair share of favors owed, mostly because Bucky had not needed to call upon them, but he had told Steve of them, whispered them in the late hours when he thought he was asleep, so that if he ever needed them, he could use them for him.

The man scowled, “Who is this _patsani_ of yours?”, and Steve pulled out the dog-tags around his neck, speaking Bucky’s _klichka_ , “Дракон,“, letting him see the name, but the other man’s eyes had widened and he barely saw the name, his voice harsh as he softly breathed out, “Золотой глаз?”.Steve could read the man’s awe and respect mingling with a small amount of fear, but didn’t know that through Bucky had served with them for only a few years, he had built quite a reputation, the kind that was whispered in the dark with fear and awe, with nothing less than respect, a legend used to scare new recruits even decades after his supposed death.Then the man’s eyes narrowed, as while it was a name that only those that had been with the Bratva before the fall of the Soviet Union knew, no had invoked it since the end of the Second World War. It was a name that only a handful of people _could_ invoke, not to mention know what his name had been, “And who are you to _Zolotoy glaz_?”.Steve barked out a bitter laugh, “I was his . . ”, voice cracking as he whispered out, “He called me Punk from the day we met, to the day he was gone.”. He knew now that Bucky had meant many things with ‘punk’, so many of those with feelings they had never named, but just once he wished that either of them had gotten the courage to have said it outright, because if he could only now say the words to someone dead and gone, it would break him completely.The man stepped aside, opening the door to a dimly lit club, having heard many of the stories of _zolotoy glaz_ , heard them many times from a woman with a spine of steel and eyes who would only soften on family, would only go soft when talking about a young _zolotoy glaz_ and his _goluboglazaya sokrovishche_. She remained in the _bratski krug_ even if her son had become _paklan_ in her place after many years, and her grand-daughter was to soon become _paklan_ , and she was here today, as luck would have it. He led Steve to the back, where an older woman twenty years his senior, with her thick white hair coiled in a braid that hung down her back like a snake, reminding them all that she was the sister of _zolotoy glaz_ , particularly when her dark eyes seemed to gleam with a gold shine when angry. She turned at the sounds of his footsteps, “Vlad, I told you, I didn’t wish to be disturbed today-”, voice fading away when she saw Steve, who smiled shyly at the sight of the woman he had last seen so many years before as a girl just becoming a woman, “Becca, you look good.”.She smiled widely, looking nearly thirty years younger as she leapt off the stool with the energy of a woman a quarter of her age, “Stevie!”, gripping his face in her hands to deliver a kiss to each cheek then pulling him into a tight hug, “We all thought you were dead! How are you still alive?!”. He relaxed in her hold gradually, relaxed for the first time since he had woken in this new century with no one around him that he knew, “The serum that made me the Captain, it kept me alive

She smiled widely, looking nearly thirty years younger as she leapt off the stool with the energy of a woman a quarter of her age, “Stevie!”, gripping his face in her hands to deliver a kiss to each cheek then pulling him into a tight hug, “We all thought you were dead! How are you still alive?!”. He relaxed in her hold gradually, relaxed for the first time since he had woken in this new century with no one around him that he knew, “The serum that made me the Captain, it kept me alive in the ice.”. She pulled back just enough to see his face, able to read the quiet devastation there that he was barely hiding, “Oh Stevie, I know why you went into the ice. I don’t blame you. _Ded_ had to tell _Mama_ so many times when we were kids that you two would not be long for the world without the other; we always knew that if we got the call for one, we would be shortly getting a call for the other.”.Steve broke a little at that, “Becca, I thought I had heard the

Steve broke a little at that, “Becca, I thought I had heard the _bean sidhe_ when he Fell, but now I’m not so sure.”, and her eyes sharpened, voice quiet, “What?”. He couldn’t look her in the face, “He was captured by Hydra for a time, experimented on. He could have come home for being a POW, but he didn’t, and I saw but didn’t think of the things I saw. I didn’t think that maybe what they’d done had made him like me.”, voice nearly broken, “I could have survived his fall. He might have.”. She looked over at Vlad, eyes tinted gold, “Send out word that _zolotoy glaz_ may still be. I want him brought home.”, voice like steel, as she promised without words that if Bucky was held somewhere against his will, had been taken from them forcibly, that soon there would be hell to pay.Steve looked at Becca, and the two shared a smile full of teeth, a promise that one way or another, Bucky

Steve looked at Becca, and the two shared a smile full of teeth, a promise that one way or another, Bucky _would_ be found and returned to them, and blood would be spilled.

Vlad left, a sharp smile on his own face, because Becca had given him a chance when he’d been just a dumb kid, had made him her most trusted companion, the first in her confidence, and he would deliver this, the one thing that she had always whispered of, in the sorrow and grief as she told the stories of her childhood, that she wanted most, to her. He would bring her brother home for her, even if it was just to get closure if he was dead.

~

Steve tried to not fidget as he waited in the hall outside _the_ Pepper Potts’ office.

Becca and that damn file had gotten him mostly caught up to the 21st century, to all this technology that hadn’t existed prior to the War. Becca had also made him some papers, so that he existed in a world where forging five different sets of enlistment papers just by signing five different names from five different places just wasn’t possible anymore.In the last three months, Becca had gotten him tech-savvy enough to pass for the younger generation, if a bit old-fashioned in values, but he had been a bit old-fashioned even before the serum, so it was nothing new.

She had then gotten information on a (mostly) in-house job interview to be the assistant to Pepper Potts, the assistant to Tony Stark, and a long-ago friend’s granddaughter, so that he could interview for the job.

Considering how Tony had taken his father’s company and made it even more famous, and even more rich, and that Pepper Potts had made quite the name for herself as not just the longest-lasting assistant Tony had ever had, but as being behind quite a few renovations herself in the company, his competition should have been stiff, and while there indeed had been several competitors, it had been nowhere the number he had been expecting. Steve put that up to how Tony was supposedly a notoriously hard person to please, and that Pepper’s workload was reputed to be no small thing, and that no one wanted to deal with that.

It gave him hope that he could pull off this sham and get hired; because he knew that he had the managing skills, and felt confident that he had mastered technology enough, to do this job.

It didn’t mean he wasn’t nervous though, dressed up in a suit Becca had found him.

Becca had done more though, and she’d smiled as she’d dressed him up like this was one of their games, pulling out a pair of nylons, a pair of garters, a pair of woman’s undergarments, whispering that it was okay for him to dress this way nowadays. She’d giggled as he’d made a face at the newer make-up, outlining his eyes, shadowing them, brightening his lips. She’d combed her fingers through his hair as she’d pinned back one errant strand back with a barrette, then presented him with a pair of handmade earrings.

She’d looked sad as she’d handed them over, as they’d once been two bullets, carved with a familiar five-point star with B.B. beneath, and his heart had broken a little as she’d explained, “In one of his first letters back, he sent these, told me these were for ‘Steph Rodgers’, his sweetheart and his fiancé, if she’d accepted his proposal even without a ring, to give to them when I saw them next.”, because these were from Bucky, his own version of the sweetheart jewelry the boys overseas had spent hours, days crafting in the trenches to remind themselves that they had a reason to come home.

He'd smiled slightly at seeing that they were screw-ons, before he’d put them on proudly, just as he wore Bucky’s tags with his mother’s ring and the blue plastic ring right alongside his cross, and the half-finished bracelet now on his wrist, of freshly polished pennies and coke bottle caps next to his father’s watch, proudly. Becca had shared his sad smile even as she’d pulled him forward into a tight hug and said that he was her favorite of her brothers-in-laws.

At that moment, while he’d been fiddling with his bracelet absently, a tall redheaded woman came out of the office he’d waiting in front of. He found himself smiling at her, as even if all the photos in the world had told him she looked a lot like her grandmother, seeing her, he could see it for himself, could see familiar laugh lines and bright eyes.

She’d glanced down at her clipboard, then looked up with a smile, “Hello Mister Barnes, come on now,”, meeting his eyes evenly even if she was a head taller.

She gestured to a seat in front of her desk, “Please sit,”, as she went around and settled in her own high-backed chair. She waited until he had sat down before beginning, “So, Mister Barnes,”, noting his small flinch when she said his last name, at how his hand grasped at his bracelet for reassurance, “Or would you prefer to be addressed as Steve?”.

He smiled softly, “Steve is fine, I’m sorry. I took my fiancé’s last name after he was declared KIA, but I still expect him to pop up and ask what the hell he did wrong, because he was only ever called ‘Mister Barnes’ when he did something wrong.”, and Pepper smiled back kindly, understanding that the grief was still fresh but that he was trying to move on, “So, Steve, you applied for a position at Stark Industries, as my assistant, would you tell me why?”.

Steve straightened up, looking her in the eye evenly, “There’s a saying back home in Brooklyn, one that I grew up on, and that was ‘First choice, Stark. Last choice, Stark.’ when it came to technology we’d use, because Stark was the best, is the best. I decided that if I was to work for big business, then I was to work for Stark.”.

She raised an eyebrow, “You say big business like it’s an evil,”, and he glanced down and away, “I grew up in a cutthroat place of big industry, where workers weren’t guaranteed a job for more than the consecutive days they showed up to work, and if you were gone at all, someone else was hired. Illegal, after union rights and labor laws, but money was tight and no one could afford to fight the system.”, before he looked back at Pepper, “Stark has never done that. Stark takes care of its employees.”.

Pepper was quiet for a moment, and could see now how the delicate set of his large hands, of his thin wrists, at how slim he was, wasn’t so much choice or genetics but from long-standing hunger because money had to go more to rent then food.

She grabbed a set of sheets of paper, handing them over, “This is the schedule Stark typically keeps, with various changes on specifics, but still roughly the same. Explain to me how you would schedule his day.”.

Steve flicked through the papers, at how many meetings there were, at the time set aside for Tony to create, at the public appearances scheduled in, at how one of his duties would be to monitor alcohol consumption, sleep and eating habits. He found himself smiling softly at the last bit, at wrangling a scientist just like he had Evie Barnes once upon a time, “How many of these are required appearances? Considering how often he drinks, perhaps limit events where he can drink, and turn aside a few of those where he would in favor of making him sleep a few hours interrupted. I would prioritize his meetings in triage, and ply him with rewards for doing well at those that are important for the sake of the company, because public opinion for Stark is not high, and he needs to make a good impression at some of these meetings.”.

Pepper leaned over her desk, a smirk on her lips, “You know, not many assistants outright admit in not so many words to treating their boss like an unruly child. Not that it’s a bad thing. Exactly how you have to treat Stark some days, because otherwise he gets out of control completely, instead of his semi-out of control that is his norm.”, before she reached over and pointed out several of the meetings, “These types of meetings, I’ve been taking over, because Stark’s presence isn’t actually required, as long as it’s a representative of the company. It would be your job to get him to those that he _is_ required to be at, and those that him being at would benefit the company.”.

She pointed out many of the public appearances, “Nearly all of these will have alcohol, and you would be required to go and try to head off some of his alcohol consumption so that he doesn’t make a big scene, as a small one is inevitable. I’ve been working on weeding out those that he could skip, and finding those that have company that would keep him entertained longer than two seconds.”.

Steve looked at the ridiculous number of hours, “I would be working twenty of the twenty-four hours of many of these days?”, and she winced, “Some days, but most days, simply arriving at eight in the morning and then leaving when you finally convince him to go home will do.”. Not that the amount bothered him truly, he’d found since the serum that he needed a bare minimum of sleep, and while serving, had been running off four hours a night. The fact was that he could probably handle such a schedule better than anyone because he wouldn’t be sleep-deprived to quite the extreme that anyone else would be.

She looked at him, “Now starting pay would be fifteen hours an hour, is that acceptable?”.

Steve blinked a little, momentarily flabbergasted at being paid so much, even if he knew that wages had raised, dumbly nodding after a moment because he didn’t know how to articulate that he would have once gotten paid maybe five dollars a day for doing much the same thing, and that there was no way he would have been considered for the job. He hadn’t gotten paid nearly as much while on his singing-and-dancing routine as Captain America even.

Pepper smiled at him, offering him a hand, “Welcome to Stark Industries, Steve,”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Two (Eight) might be a while - I need to rewatch Iron Man 1, which I plan on doing this weekend. I've been putting it off because I have the idea stuck in my head of how Steve would throw so many wrenches in canon plot, and that things will deviate from canon at some point because of him. It'll be time-consuming trying to identify what will be small changes and what will be big changes. But it'll be worth it.  
> If Tony would cooperate.  
> I'm going to be yelling at the TV screen SO much during the movie - "Damn it, Tony!". SO MUCH YELLING will happen.


	2. Perception is Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve had returned, but nothing was the same. Captain America wasn't needed, and Steve Rogers . .  
> Steve Rogers was nothing without Bucky.  
> So Steve was forced to adapt, forced to face this stark reality head-on, but not alone.  
> He had a goal and nothing would stop him from seeing victory here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone noticed - I edited the title of the first chapter; I was thinking on what to call this chapter and realized that 'Returning from a Dream' was more apt for the first chapter. Mostly because my titles have found themselves with themes, and with 'Perception is Everything' being the title of the second, I realized that I needed to edit that.
> 
> 5-29-17  
> Unbetaed - fresh off the press even. Literally, just finished the chapter.  
> Please say something if there's something repeating - it's done that no less than three times for me when I copy and paste from word.

It took him a couple of months, but Steve learned how to wrangle Tony Stark.

The fact that he had long ago learned how to be a little shit certainly helped matters. The fact that he had long ago mastered how to be an endearing, honorable, little bastard ‘ _only with your best interests at heart_ ’ ( **just keep fuckin’ tellin’ yourself that, punk** ), meant that he got JARVIS on his side very quickly. The fact that he retained his strategic mind, with thousands of plans on how to win battles and win wars, meant that Tony didn’t stand a chance when he set his mind to something.

It meant he could show up at the crack of dawn and slip in and change Tony’s coffee to de-caf, could leave granola stashed everywhere, could change Tony’s settings for his music as he worked to slowly bring the volume down, slowly change the music choice through the night to softer more sleep-inducing tunes. It meant that he could leave a red marker in with all of Tony’s whites and make him walk around in pink for days, that he could set the toaster to go off at random intervals, that he could change all the times in his home to make it so that appeared much later than it was when he got absorbed into his projects to force him to quit in ‘supposed early mornings’. It meant that Tony looked less haggard, less like he was running purely on caffeine and sugar and more like having actual food and continuous sleep.

The fact that he retained all of his skills and strengths in combat meant that he could serve a dual-purpose.

Pepper thanked him profusely when he spotted a gunman aimed at Tony during one public appearance, and took Tony down and shielded him, before grasping a nearby dinner platter and spinning it out to nail the guy in the back of the head hard, knocking him down and out. Then she had forced Tony to make sure that he was never alone when a situation held too high of a potential to be dangerous IE nearly always.

Thanks to Becca’s connections, he knew who the ‘Ten Rings’ were and where a likely place for them to strike was. Hence, he was able to nudge Pepper to make Tony take him along when he would give a demonstration of his Jericho missiles to troops in Afghanistan.

Steve was hyper-alert the entire time they were in Afghanistan, from the moment they entered it’s airspace, eyes always flickering around and scanning for threats. He was careful to play it off as unease at such a foreign environment compared to New York City, which it was but not to the extent he acted like it was, and that he’d never left New York, which he’d let Tony assume and didn’t bother correcting.

He played little attention to the actual demonstration, half debating if he could manage to lift a fire-arm before they were traveling back to the airport, having to zone out some to deal with the noise of the missiles, infinitely glad that his days of open battle were held off the table, perhaps indefinitely considering he’d grown _maybe_ an inch and gained maybe ten pounds and didn’t look like he’d ever get as big as he’d been.

Steve had no major problem with combat, had even been _good_ at it, could put up a hell of a fight for something he believed in, but he’d been at war nearly his whole life. He would fight until he no longer needed to, would never stand down while injustice reigned, but he wanted a vacation. He wanted to take that trip across scenic America (with Bucky), wanted to meet up again with the girls (introduce his fella to them), wanted to visit that which the War had ravaged and see how it had healed. He wanted to have the whole world know that he’d loved Bucky (always loved Bucky, always will), wanted to make them a home, wanted to be called _Punk_ again (wanted to be told he was loved again). He wanted to rest for once and enjoy life without fighting tooth and nail (and wouldn’t Bucky laugh at the change, at how the man who would go looking for fights wanted to settle down in peace, but then again, Bucky would probably just be grateful that they were both alive and well and _together_ after everything).

His blue eyes were sharp as he sat next to Tony in the convoy, scanning into the distance as he half listened to a soldier ask for a photo with Tony.

He was up and moving before thought when he saw a flash of metal ahead of them, saw the missile coming their way, breaking the window between him and the driver and reaching for the wheel and sharply turning it seconds before impact, before the back-end was tagged.

As the convoy flipped over, Steve clinging to a seat with all the fervor of a pissed-off cat, his mind drifted to how tenacious little Asshole had been when someone had tried to remove her from Bucky, mind drifting to how if Bucky was here, he would have been their eyes in the sky and taken out the shooter before they could shoot.

The moment the convoy rocked to a stand-still, upside down and smoking and dented, Steve had sprung up, wishing again that S.H.I.E.L.D. had just given him his shield back, but still capable of fighting without it. It was child’s play to grab a gun from one of the soldiers and barrel out of the convoy, eyes already tracking incoming hostiles and firing, taking them down at ranges normal people wouldn’t manage without a scope and spotter.

Guns had always been Bucky’s thing, and he would never have the affection Bucky’d had for his favorite Smith & Wesson 1917 and Victory Model, or even that over-fondness for his scoped M1917 Enfield rifle and its companion for the M1917 bayonet (and that border-line love affair with the M1942 bayonet), but he knew his way around a gun. He could disassemble and resemble nearly any gun that Bucky’d had (or would like, he knew Bucky’s preferences in weapons) in moments without looking, and could aim for a small target a considerable distance away, well enough to have been considered a marksman. Guns were not his favored weapon – knives had always had more appeal for him – but that vibranium shield had been everything he’d ever wanted in a weapon – defensive, offensive, support.

Even as he fired and dodged, he couldn’t help but think of what Bucky would aim at, that Bucky would have had them down on the ground before he’d even managed to break out of the convoy, that Bucky would have been cursing at him as he took down anyone who got too close.

He had to focus to guard his left, too used to Bucky there, and knew he failed more often than not when bullets burned paths across his skin when he was too slow to move.

He could almost hear Bucky in his ear; **_Move your fuckin’ ass, you damn Punk! Watch your damn left! I’m going to fucking tan your damn hide if you don’t DODGE!!_**

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tony stumble out of the convoy, looking dazed and bleeding from his temple, and was turning to yell at him, _Don’t be out here, yah fuckin’ asswipe, it’s too damn dangerous right now!_ , when he saw another missile being fired.

He was running his way even as he hoped that Becca raised hell when he didn’t call that night to say everything had gone to plan. Even as he shoved Tony down as the Stark Industries missile went off next to them, his mind only focused on how he’d wanted to see what those two strong women could do together when working toward a common goal, and that now, he would see Bucky again in death.

He wasn’t sure if he screamed when the shrapnel embedded into his back and shoulder, his eyes locked on how his skinny frame hadn’t been enough to cover Tony fully, shrapnel buried in the other man’s chest.

He only knew his eyes flashed gold as he raged, mind confused on whether he was seeing Tony or if he was seeing Bucky bleeding out in front of him, knowing that he had failed him (them), and rage spread through his being unchecked.

Rage was familiar and far more welcome than the grief that threatened him with the knowledge that soon he (Bucky – Tony) would die from such wounds.

He roared as men approached, their guns held at the ready, hovering over Bucky (Tony) with his teeth bared and his own gun held at the ready, calculating the odds that he could shoot them all before he died and finding them low with the chance that they would hit his charge too high to risk.

Steve didn’t need to know the language they spoke to know that they were demanding he relinquish his gun or they would kill him, but after that, he had no idea. Partly because one cracked him across the face with the butt of a gun hard and the world fell into darkness.

~

Steve woke in an instant, catching himself on one knee when he was thrown forward, taking in the dark converted cave around him and the older man in front of him. He was darting forward to catch Tony when they dropped him, not understanding what was being said but able to figure out by their body language and gestures that they wanted the other man to fix Tony.

He didn’t care about the blood coming from Tony getting on him, just setting to removing as much of the shrapnel from him as he could, ignoring how he could feel his own shrapnel being healed in closing wounds.

Only once their attackers were gone did he turn to the other man, “Do you speak English?”.

He nodded, coming forward to help support Tony, “Yes, I can, can you help me carry him to a table? I think I might be able to save his life.”, but Steve just pulled him up higher into his arms, ignoring how he was ripping his wounds open with the movement, following the surprised man to where he cleared off a flat surface large enough that Tony could be laid on it.

He turned his back to the doctor’s sight, “Can you pick out the shrapnel before it gets healed in there? What do you intend to do?”, hearing his quiet gasp at the devastation the missile had wrecked on his back. Steve could feel each piece of shrapnel, knew that he’d had maybe two hours before his body healed around them, and the smaller pieces would start working through his bloodstream towards his heart within an hour, and feared that his grace period was nearly over.

He ignored the pain by remembering the last time he’d encountered shrapnel, and how Bucky had been forced to play field medic to remove the jagged pieces of metal from his side before they could heal there, even as he listened to the doctor, “I intend to build a miniature arc reactor, which will act as the polar ends of a magnet to the shrapnel, so that it doesn’t cycle through his bloodstream.”.

Steve listened as the doctor explained what he would do, how and why, deft hands plucking out metal and his wounds closing moments later. The other man had yet to ask how that was possible, but the question hung between them.

The man didn’t ask though as he directed Steve into being his nurse for this procedure, and he fell into the role with practiced ease, not needing many directions after the man had already explained how he would do the procedure.

As they patched Tony up, the man’s eyes crinkling in wry amusement, “I believe Mr. Stark got very lucky today in having you with him. Medically trained _and_ a soldier.”.

It gave Steve the distinct feeling that maybe all doctors willing to do experimental treatments to save lives knew far more than they should. Something about the man also reminded him heavily of Dr. Erskine.

It was honestly disconcerting.

~

Tony woke up in the next couple of hours, as Steve prowled the perimeter of the room they were essentially locked in.

He flailed a little before Steve could catch his arms so that he didn’t accidentally pull out one of the wires running out of his chest, “What the hell did you do to me?!”. Tony didn’t even seem to realize Steve was there for a moment as Steve put some effort behind pinning the other man down, far more than a man his size should be able to.

The doctor, who Steve had gotten a name out of, Yinsen, spoke up, “What I did? What I did is to save your life. We removed as much shrapnel from your chest as I could, but there are still some pieces left, and there all headed into your atrial septum. I’ve seen plenty of injuries of like that. In my village, we call those casualties “the walking dead”, because the barbs take about a week to reach your heart.”.

Tony frowned, “ _We_?”, before he recognized who’d been holding him down, “Steve?”, smiling widely, “You’re alive!”. He looked confused after a moment, “Why are you alive?”, then remembered that he hadn’t been the only one to hit with shrapnel, “You were hurt!”.

Steve gave something of a sharp grin, “I may have put up a bit of a fight to make sure I went with you.”, thinking on the blurry snippets of between their ambush and his being tossed in the cave where he’d lashed out anytime he’d been taken more than a few feet from Tony, before looking away as memories of the last war he’d fought came to the forefront, “They got to try harder than that to kill me.“. His mind drifted for a moment to what he thought Bucky would do if he’d heard Steve had been taken captive, before it snapped back when Tony caught sight of his bare back, fine lines crisscrossing over his skin from where Yinsen had pulled the shrapnel from him and now looked years old, “How?”.

Steve walked a step away, looking away, “My armor worked better than yours. Where I got hit was mostly covered by my Kevlar, and the little that wasn’t, Yinsen here quickly removed.”.

Tony gestured at the big piece of metal holed up in his chest, “What is _this_?”, needing to know more.

Yinsen gestured back, holding a larger piece of shrapnel he’d pulled from Steve, “That is an electromagnet, hooked up to a car battery, and it’s keeping the shrapnel from entering your heart.”.

He continued on after a moment, “We met once, you and I, a few years ago at a technical conference in Bern.”.

Tony frowned, “I don’t remember.”, and Yinsen waved it off, “No, you wouldn’t. If I had been that drunk, I wouldn’t have been able to stand, much less give a coherent lecture on integrated circuits.”.

Steve winced because he could believe that. Prior to his meeting Tony, he’d done his research, and the man had been drunk more often than not.

He spoke then, “Where are we?”, having been aware enough between the ambush and arriving here that he had a vague idea, but it was only vague and there was nothing to note for a long distance in any direction if his memory served right. Tony didn’t know that though; he needed to know that they were in the middle of nowhere.

Yinsen opened his mouth to answer, to say that they were in the middle of the desert several miles from anything presumably, when they got company.

Steve heard them coming well before they saw them, speaking a language he didn’t know, but he got the gist anyway. He was standing and moving between the other two when Yinsen heard, eyes wide and panic clear, grabbing Tony’s arm and helping him to a sitting position, “Come on, stand up. Stand up!”.

Tony was leaning on him as Yinsen pushed the car battery into his arms, trying to smile reassuringly, “Just do as I do, and no one gets hurt.”. It was fragile around the edges and there was fear in his eyes, and Steve found himself curling his hands into fists, eyes narrowing as he debated the chances he had at taking them all down right then.

He nearly did regardless of his chances, knowing they were low in that they would all get out alive without his shield, and he cursed Fury under his breathe for holding onto it.

Yinsen saw him reach into the back of his waistband, fingering the handle of a small stiletto knife, hand grabbing his shoulder and giving a small shake of his head, “Come on, put your hands up.”.

Steve narrowed his eyes at Yinsen, before turning that narrowed eyed glare on the terrorists that rushed in the room, holding them at gunpoint and ushering them out of the room.

His lip curled threateningly and he moved between the nearest guns and the other two when they got two close, but he allowed them to be shepherded, unaware of the ring of gold in his eyes and the violent air around him. He was not the symbol of a nation, he was not the paragon of virtue here; he was the man unafraid of committing violence to protect.

His shadow stretched and in the quiet spaces, the dark places, of the cave a deep growling echoed.

Steve’s eyes were sharp with triumph, knowing that the Great Dog would come.

There were uneasy glances shared between the terrorists at the sounds, at the sight of gold in the smaller man’s eyes, before with false bravado, Steve was shoved forward first into a room with their boss.

Steve might have laughed under his breathe when he skinned his palms on the rough stone floor, because he knew that if Bucky was alive, that with _Bucky alive_ , these men’s life expectancies after this were short. The question would not be if they would die, but who would get them first.

Tony gave him a strange look, but the moment was forgotten when the boss, gestured for him and Steve to be pushed down on their knees, and spoke in the foreign language.

Yinsen translated, “He says, ‘Welcome, Tony Stark, the most famous mass murderer in the history of America. He is honored to be in your presence. “.

Yinsen’s lips thinned at whatever the man said next, “He wants you to build the missile. The Jericho missile that you demonstrated.”.

Tony didn’t hesitate, “I refuse.”.

Steve spoke before he could think, “Tony!”, and he was backhanded for it.

He was fully aware of the irony that he was trying to stop somebody from being a heroic little shit for principles, and in that moment felt a deep sympathy and need to apologize to Bucky for putting up with him for years.

Tony tried to move towards him, as he’d been knocked onto his hands again with the force, but he waved him off, as it had stung, but this was nothing. He took a moment to right himself, lip curled and eyes angry, hands in fists, trying to not let that anger overtake him.

All he could think of was that he could not die here; He had Bucky to find – Bucky to bring _home_.

Yinsen continued translating after a moment, “He wants to know what you think.”.

Tony looked at the guns all around him, all bearing the Stark Industries logo, “I think he has a lot of my weapons.”.

The boss smirked, and Yinsen translated what he said next, “He says you have everything you need to build the Jericho missile here. He wants you to make a list of materials of anything else you need. He says for you to start working immediately, and when you’re done, he will set you free.”.

The two men gave tight smiles, “No, he won’t.”, “No, he won’t.”, and Steve swallowed the growl that tried to escape his chest at how both men were beginning to resign themselves to death.

His eyes were sharp as they caught sight of a familiar red-eyed crow, and there was death in his gaze. Death had come to the cave.

Steve would not scare her away; he grinned with a mouth full of sharp teeth, shadow stretching around him, and welcomed her to the party – she would feast before this was over, with the Great Dog.

The grin didn’t go away as they were filmed as a hostage tape, knowing that soon someone would realize who he was. Knowing that S.H.I.E.L.D. would soon come to ‘rescue’ them.

He would have no mercy if they tried to act on the unspoken promise of death. Then their 'rescuers' would only come into a scene of carnage with them gone.

Steve Rogers was no Damsel in Distress; His only Knight (that he would ever accept) was a boy from Brooklyn, currently MIA.

~

Steve stayed out of the other two’s way as they worked on the missile once they were drug back into their cave, skin itching with the urge to fight, Bucky’s voice in his ears ( **you’ve taken on monsters before, I know you’re not afraid to take on men with guns, you little shit** ).

He nearly laughed at how he could almost hear Bucky cursing in both Russian and Romanian in his ear, cussing him out for being a dumb little shit knowing that it was a trap and still marching right in. He could almost imagine Bucky pulling at his hair, eyes a little wild and dark as he waved around a couple strands of grey hair, saying it was all his fault. If he could see how Bucky was armed to the teeth, smile just as sharp as his own, a promise in his eyes that he was coming, that was how he knew Bucky would be.

He was sure anyone else would say that he was an angry little bastard, grieving and raging at losing that which mattered most, and now he would take any chance to vent that anger on someone he considered worthy. No one would deny that he had the right to be angry here. They might disagree with how far he was willing to go if they kept him from finding Bucky.

He prowled around the edges, picking up scraps of metal and various odds and ends, and hearing voices in his ears:

Dum-Dum ( _that’d make a mighty fine bludgeon, Cap, bash a man’s skull in_ );

Jaq ( _Hm, bombs make everything_ better _, Capitan. Connect that to an incendiary_ );

Gabe ( _That could be jimmy-rigged into picking up basic radio waves, it’s not like we know every which way of using scraps and odds and ends into weapons or radios_ );

Morito ( _Don’t you bastards go and get hurt, the Doc there doesn’t have many supplies other than to stitch ya, and you don’t need that, Cap_ );

Falsworth ( _Bloody bastard, you got caught! The Sergeant is going to have your hide later!_ ).

He missed those bastards badly, and it was made all the worse by Dum-Dum being dead only a handful of years before he woke up, and Gabe during the late 60’s. Morito was in a retirement home, Becca had told him, and had been working on a way for him to go see that old friend, because his family didn’t want random nosy people upsetting him. Jaq was in France, as far as Becca knew, and she’d been working on a way to get in contact because the French were stonewalling her. Falsworth was in Britain as far as anyone knew, out of the public eye and hard to find after nearly dying by an attack by an IRA agent nearly fifteen years ago.

Peggy was a ghost (or more accurately, a life-long spy), and Becca wasn’t having much luck finding out where she’d gone.

He wondered vaguely if the hostage tape would get on the internet, and if the Commandoes would see it. If anyone stood a chance recognizing him without ever having seen little him, it was them.

He thought that if nothing else, they would recognize the anger in his eyes.

He wondered if they would be game for helping find Bucky, and getting him _home_.

He thought that they would – Jaq was probably itching for the chance to blow shit up.

Yinsen’s voice distracted him from getting caught in the sadness and bittersweet hope that he might get to see them the remaining members of the Commandoes one last time before they died, “I’m sure they’re looking for you, Stark. But they will never find you in these mountains. Look, what you just saw, that is your legacy, Stark. Your life’s work, in the hands of those murderers. Is that how you want to go out? Is this the last act of defiance of the great Tony Stark? Or are you going to do something about it?”.

Tony was frustrated, and it showed as he brushed aside a countertop worth of metal in anger, “Why _should_ I do anything? They’re going to kill me, you, Steve, either way. And if they don’t, I’ll probably be dead in a week.”.

Yinsen smiled, at peace with dying, “Well, then, this is a very important week for you, isn’t it?”.

Steve laughed, “Death doesn’t scare me. Death and I are long-time friends. I’m not runnin’, because I would just die tired, but I’m fighting. There’s someone out there waiting for me.”, a promise there.

Tony spent a long moment just looking at the two, overwhelmed by how the two were willing to put their lives in his hands. No one trusted him with anything, no one who knew trusted him to take care of anything. A few were kind about it, letting him run himself into the ground and just trying to be there and keep it going down completely and catch him when he hit rock bottom, like Pepper, Happy, Rhodney. And here they were, saying that they trusted him with coming up with a way to escape and save their lives.

He would do his best to not let them down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony was being massively uncooperative in this chapter. I actually had most of this written before this weekend, but while I have most of the events of the while they were in the cave, the scenes following that in the movie were a little . . fuzzy. I watched Iron Man again, and now have a good grasp of where the next two chapters are outlined as.  
> Through I may have gotten side-tracked . . I don't remember how we got on the subject, but I got on a rant of the awesomeness of Clint, then I was describing a scene that can't happen until Part 3. All I have to say is Fanboy!Coulson, Mimicking Ceiling!Clint, and Candy Bars. That scene is hysterical, but that's a full Part away.  
> Well, there's my motivation - it cracked me up as much as the 'ass bongos' from Part 1, so I SHALL get there. Tony just has to cooperate for a while yet.
> 
> I located the bookmark on my computer finally, lost in the hundreds I have, but I found the tumblr page of the conversation that was a major, if not the, inspiration for Til the End of the Line. Here it is: http://spectralarchers.tumblr.com/post/114030535237


	3. Shielding Exposé

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captured and confined, a lumbering giant conceals themselves like a wolf wearing sheep-skin, telling half-truths that escape sharp teeth yet guarding like a sentinel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to post for VE-day, but alas, it was not to be.
> 
> The conversations in Russian are purposely left untranslated in the work, but can be found in the end notes, as they, like the Soldat's comments in Waking Dreams are incredibly relevant, if revealing - through not as revealing as Tony's hostage tape because the whole plot with Stane is revealed, in Urdu if I remember right. They are untranslated, because Tony doesn't understand, and if he did, SO much would be clearer for him.

Tony took to hiding his building of something behind his demands for what he wanted to build the missile, dictating the mess of men going in and out of the cave carrying things.

“If this is going to be my workstation, I want it well—lit. I want these up.”

“I need welding gear. I don’t care if it’s acetylene or propane.”

“I need a soldering station. I need helmets. I’m gonna need goggles.”

“I would like a smelting cup. I need two sets of precision tools.”

Steve figured it was because they had no idea what was actually needed to build the missile, particularly as he could see how Tony was only truly on working on it when being observed, and even then, it was maybe a third of the time, so he got away with it.

(He thinks Tony forgot the cameras he’d soon come to recognize as always watching, and made sure to obscure any time Tony did something more bluntly not the missile.)

He had no idea what went into a missile, but he knew weapons, he knew when the missile was being assembled. He also recognized that whatever Tony was mainly designing, it was inherently meant to be defensive here.

(He approved; there had been a reason why he’d suggested a shield to Howard for his primary weapon, after all.)

The few times Tony slept, or outright passed out, Steve took to welding something of his own.

It was nowhere near as good as the one he’d used through the war, but nowhere near as useless as what he’d used in the streets of Brooklyn. Considering it was made from scraps of steel, it weighed far more than any other version, part of that being purposeful so it was a good bludgeon, but the serum made that negligible. All that mattered was that he was armed when Tony was finished because he wasn’t going to let him fight his way out on his own.

He might have also been following a few of Jaq’s suggestions as well as Dum-Dum’s, and created a few explosives.

He’d been drafting a bigger one when one of the terrorists spoke directly to him, “что вы делаете?”.

He smirked, quickly editing the image to something that could string a man up and stretch him out, pop every joint out of socket and cause excruciating pain, “Планы трахают вас.”, aware that this would end with _him_ in pain, but he thought it better that he be the target of suspicion so they didn’t look closely at what Tony was doing. He knew that soon enough, someone would get impatient and demand to know what the man was doing, and Tony was just far enough in that a search of his worktable would reveal what he was doing, even if that wasn’t what he was mainly focused on building.

Steve wanted them to watch _him_ , to think he was the one that wasn’t cooperating so that they would take Tony’s quieter behavior as compliance. It wasn’t like he didn’t have decades of experience of being the punching bag of stupid a-hole bullies.

He tried to ignore Bucky’s voice in his ear; **You dumb fucking punk-!**

The man colored slightly, raising his gun from where it had been almost relaxed in his hold to point it in his face, “Скажи это снова, ублюдок! Попробуй!”, nearly jabbing it in his eye.

He smirked wider, making a play of letting his eyes wander to the other man’s gut, “Я сказал, я делаю чертовски планы, чтобы трахать вас.”, before leaning back a little to be in a more comfortable position, “Я не могу сильно помочь Старку с его собственным гребаным творением, и ты все равно покончишь со мной, когда он закончит, поэтому я прошу свое время думать о путях убить всех твоих ублюдков.”.

The man jabbed the barrel into the hollow of his throat, a cruel smirk on his face, “Да, да. И это даже не принятие желаемого за действительное. Ты здесь мертвый человек.”.

Steve laughed, a bitter sound with an angry edge, “Я хотел бы! Знаешь, я пробовал. Пытался утопить мою печаль, даже упал на борт самолета во льду. Смерть не хочет меня без моего парня, думает, что я слишком много переживаю без него, чтобы держать меня в очереди.”.

The man sneered, pulling back with a scoff, tearing up the image Steve had made and leaving after he back-handed Steve across the face and knocked him to the ground, “Ебаный [Петух](http://www.moscasdecolores.com/en/gay-slang-collection/gay-dictionary-petuh-russia).”.

Yinsen helped him off the ground, “That wasn’t smart, antagonizing him like that. He could have beat you badly, if not outright killed you then.”.

Steve smirked, teeth bloody from the busted lip he’d gotten, “Wouldn’t be the first time. My fella spent our entire lives trying to stop me from picking fights with bullies. He used to tell people why he always stuck so close was because he was my self-preservation, and that without him, I would go charging in at the first instance of a wrong being committed. Guess he wasn’t wrong.”.

( **Fucking right you fucking don’t have any self-preservation. Tried to beat it into your dumb punk head for all the good that did me.** )

He smirked a little behind the hand he used to wipe the blood off his chin, pleased at seeing the two’s faces twitch into familiar expressions of _oh-my-god-Steve_.

Tony eyed them skeptically for a second, addressing Steve, “How many languages do you speak?”.

He shrugged, “Seven. Some of another three.”, thinking on how Bucky had always been better at languages, and how the man might have picked up what languages the terrorists were speaking just from exposure already. Bucky had always been good at that, had learned French from Jaq while they’d been captured well enough to communicate to the man what his English couldn’t, and German from the Hydra soldiers well enough to get their attention to make himself Zola’s test subject.

He looked at Yinsen, “You?”.

The man spoke after a second, “Several. Six passably.”, then made a gesture out where their capturers were, “They speak Arabic, Urdu, Dari, Pashto, Mongolian, Farsi, and Russian.”, watching how Steve frowned, annoyed as all but the Russian were not languages he knew or had even heard of prior to this incident in Kunar Province.

Tony let his head fall back in a _fuuuuuccck_ manner, “I speak a few myself, not as many as you two apparently though. And apparently not enough for this place either.”.

He eyed Yinsen speculatively after a moment, “Who _are_ these people?”.

Yinsen’s smirk was a little sardonic as he watched Steve brush the blood on his hand onto his pants, “They are your loyal customers.”, before turning toward Tony, “They call themselves the Ten Rings.”.

He moved closer to Tony’s workstation, eyeing what he was building right then, something that looked similar to the electromagnet still in his chest, “You know, we might be more productive if you include me in the planning process.”.

Steve snorted as the two quickly put their heads together after that, talking details that were just a bit above his understanding, and so he split his attention; half of it was on keeping an ear out for anyone coming back to check on them, a quarter to continuing to build his little explosives and combining odds and ends, and a quarter on what the two were doing.

Tony was breaking down missiles, pulling out their guts, before extracting small pieces from amongst the rest, “Okay, we don’t need this.”.

“What is that?”

“That’s palladium, 0.15 grams.”

“We need at least 1.6, so why don’t you go break down the other 11?”, directing Yinsen to pulling the small amount of palladium from the other missiles.

He might have been paying more attention after ‘palladium’, something telling him that it wasn’t exactly ‘safe’ to be handling. Particularly considering how both were taking precautions before messing around with it.

It didn’t mean that he didn’t snicker a little with Yinsen’s dead tone as he went to break down the other missiles, “I think you’re beginning to trust me.”, and Tony’s snark, “Swell”. He might have been a little proud that Tony had actually been listening all those times he’d been sarcastic and said _swell_.

Tony, in particular, was restless, fidgeting as he packed the orange-red powder into a bowl with a shape being made for a mold, anxious watching (and hovering) as Yinsen worked with the palladium, “Careful. Careful, we only get one shot at this.”.

Yinsen sent him a rather quelling flat look, “Relax. I have steady hands.”, and if the scenario had been less serious, Steve might have laughed at the _ain’t-taking-none-of-your-bullshit(-Steve)_ look on Yinsen’s face that reminded him so much of Bucky’s default expression after just a month of them being friends, “Why do you think you’re still alive?”.

Steve rather thought that Bucky would have gotten a kick out of seeing ‘Stark Jr.’ a bit brow-beaten after that comment, thought that he would have like Yinsen as well.

He also nearly spoke up then and called Yinsen, Erskine, remembering the German doctor’s face after he’d triggered an asthma attack when he’d insisted that he could finish the rest of the day’s tests then, and a similar look on his face before Peggy had been paged.

It was truly eerie when the man turned towards him and a familiar _I-know-what-you’re-thinking-dimwit_ and _why-Steve_ look on his face were gifted his way for a moment before he turned back to what he’d been doing, pouring the melted palladium into the ring-shaped mold.

Steve never wanted Yinsen to meet Bucky or Peggy. He had a feeling the man would fit right in with the _Steve-is-a-massive-reckless-moron-and-needs-us-to-remind-him-he’s-human_ club. (A club Bucky had thought he was president of, and would invite anyone he thought could help him in his campaign of _Steve-just-needs-to-be-fucking-wrapped-in-blankets-and-fucking-kept-from-the-world-so-he-stops-trying-to-fight-it-dammit_. Peggy had backed Bucky ninety percent of the time before she helped Steve escape for a scheme, and Bucky would be bitching at them for it as he came to rescue them when it inevitably went FUBAR.)

He also had the sinking feeling that there might be a connection between Yinsen and Erskine.

He really hoped he was wrong.

~

Steve woke up from his doze, having been half-daydreaming about his reunion with Bucky, at Yinsen’s, “That doesn’t look like a Jericho missile.”, having zoned out when the two had gotten too technical for him. (He’d understood the gist, but honestly, couldn’t have repeated what they said in a way that adequately explained what the hell they were doing.)

(He’d already made a mental note to see if Becca could find him a basic engineering class at the local community college, because he’d learned a fair bit growing up with Evie and spending time with Grace, and more now with handling Tony, but the majority of what he was doing right now was going over his head. He’d understood enough that he thought it resembled an electromagnet, what with the palladium ring encased in metal wrapped at eight points with copper wire, with an internal battery being charged by a small generator that was making all their lights flicker.

And might have killed one of their cameras, what with his fiddling of the wires around it, or at least shorted it out a little.)

There was a bit of preening in Tony’s stance, “That’s because it’s a miniaturized arc reactor. I got a big one powering my factory at home. It should keep the shrapnel out of my heart.”.

Steve perked up a little at _arc reactor_ , remembering a little of some of Evie’s ideas in her letters during the war, and what he thought Tony had been building was basically what he’d understood of Evie’s idea now that the words _arc reactor_ had actually been said. It even looked like what she’d described a little, through so much smaller. He smiled a little, remembering Becca saying that after the war, Evie had ended up working at Stark Industries, and had become second only to the man in charge.

Yinsen’s attention was intense as he inspected the small thing, “But what could it _generate_?”, clearly intrigued.

Tony lifted it up a little so it could better catch the light, “If my math is right,”, a smirk twisting his lips, “And it always is, three gigajoules per second.”.

Yinsen looked reluctantly impressed “That could run your heart for fifty lifetimes.”.

The smirk was wry, and Steve got a sense of foreboding, “Yeah. Or something big for fifteen minutes.”.

He briefly wondered if this had been what Bucky (or Peggy, or the Howling Commandos, or anyone who’d known him really) had felt when he’d set out to do something (anything).

~

Steve was drawn out of his sketching of a memory of Bucky, trying to remember every detail of the man looking fierce, his eyes gold and angry, stalking forward in a predatory prowl, be a rustle of papers as Tony tossed them in front of Yinsen, “This is our ticket out of here.”.

He recognized them as what Tony had been working on whenever he hadn’t been working on his arc reactor, tucking his drawing in a pocket as he approached to see better, “What is it?”.

Tony waved at them eagerly, “Flatten them out and look.”, almost bouncing on his heels as he waited for them to comment on what he’d been planning.

Steve’s eyebrows rose up to his hairline, “Oh, wow.”, and Yinsen was peering closer at the designs for a mechanical suit, “Impressive.”.

He admired the lines of the design, mentally calibrating how all those parts would move together, what would have to be welded together, not paying much attention as the two had tossed schematics back and forth. He could see how it could work, even if a part of him was in awe that such a thing could exist outside of Bucky’s science fiction.

He could just imagine Bucky flittering around in amazement, curious and intrigued and exclaiming, _‘Can it-?!’_ , just like he had with Howard’s inventions. He almost wanted to ask if it could spit fire, if it could fly, because those had always been Bucky’s first questions.

He imagined how Bucky would be cataloging every potential weak spot, would be planning to cover those from his sniper’s roost. It had been child’s play for him to pick out which dark, high corner Bucky would use for a sniper’s roost within those first few days, and if he’d kept glancing there every once in a while, half-expecting to hear him grumbling ( **Your plans are always so stupid, you’re fucking lucky you have me covering your ass while you _charge right in through the fucking front door-!_** ) and disassembling and reassembling his weapon of choice after making his little roost, well, that was only for him to know.

It didn’t mean that he didn’t eye certain rifles of their captors, thinking of which ones Bucky would love best and which men Bucky would have loved to crack the butt of the gun against their jaws for bad maintenance.

Yinsen said nothing of how he twisted his knife back and forth between his fingers in quickening little twists and spins as he watched him remove his electromagnetic from Tony’s chest to put in the arc reactor, helping him when he needed something, but not trusting how his hands itched for a fight to help him more. The moment he was done, the moment Tony had his arc reactor, Steve was up and pacing, rolling his shoulders and flexing his hands into fists, knife flicking back and forth between his hands, itching for one of the terrorists to come in.

His eyes were flecked with gold and his nostrils flared while the baying of the Great Hound echoed loudly in his ears, and he sensed the Great Hound was close, waiting for someone to cross a line. He wanted someone so badly to push his buttons, unable to think of a time where for no more than a few weeks – not even more than a few days before the plane went into the ice – he hadn't been engaged with someone in some kind of fight. There were bullies to fight and a Bucky to save, and he was stuck here by some terrorists that had little use for him, where his days were numbered for only as long as they didn’t think him completely useless or they would shoot him then and there.

He wasn’t scared to die, but he had unfinished business; he had a Bucky to reclaim and remind the world that was _his_. Because clearly, they had forgotten – if they had ever got it through their thick skulls in the first place, now he wondered, because he thought he had made it _abundantly_ clear – that he’d gone miles behind enemy lines alone for, that he’d risked death and mutilation with an untested serum for, that he’d fought to be enlisted to get overseas for. He would have done any of those to do the right thing, but he did it regardless of what it could have cost him, did it without mercy for anyone standing between him and Bucky, _for Bucky_.

He almost wanted someone to get suspicious of what they were doing so he could fight their way out of there right then. _Almost_ , because Bucky was drowning him out beneath his yelling ( **WHAT THE FUCK, YOU DAMN PUNK?! DO YOU WANT TO DIE?!! I’M FUCKING GOING TO TAN YOUR FUCKING HIDE SO HARD YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO FUCKING SIT FOR MONTHS IF YOU FUCKING TRY THAT, YOU FUCKING PUNK!** ).

He almost wanted to do so regardless just so he could kickstart Bucky’s _Steve’s-doing-something-fucking-STUPID_ sense like a curb-stomp to his balls, and have him rampaging this way. He thought it would be worth it, more than likely nearly dying in the attempt, just to see Bucky again. Even just as an avenging angel and rampaging dragon tearing their enemies apart.

He didn’t because it wasn’t just him. He wasn’t so naïve to think that he wouldn’t have tried to charge right out of the cave into the sands if it had been just him. He knows that not even two seconds in, he would have if it had been just him held captive.

It didn’t mean he wasn’t restless or toed the line between reckless and cautious, helping work on the suit of iron when Tony passed out and making sure to be a flurry of movement for the cameras when he wasn’t.

Steve was working on soldering a chest piece while the two cooled down some from their own work, playing what looked like backgammon, “Good roll. Good roll.”.

Tony leaned back some at Yinsen took his turn, “You know, you still haven’t told me where you’re from, Yinsen.”, eyes flicking out to watch Steve.

Yinsen gave a small smile, not meeting Tony’s gaze when he looked at him fully, “I’m from a small town called Gulmira.”, the edges soft, “It’s actually a nice place.”.

Steve paused in what he was doing, leaning back against the cool stone wall to listen.

Tony glanced to the side, a smidgen of guilt in his gaze for having been assuming – like most Americans in the wake of 9/11 – that he’d come from a place full of terrorists like this just because he lived in the Middle East, “Got a family?”.

Steve recognized the sadness in Yinsen’s gaze as he responded, “Yes, and I will see them when I leave here.”, saw it in his own every time he looked in a mirror. It was the gaze of a man with little left to lose, and who lived mostly to honor the memory and wishes of the dead. His gaze just had a bit of spite, and anger simmering in it as well, because he lived partly to spite those who thought he was a dead man walking, and because somewhere out there was Bucky, and he’d been kept from him.

Yinsen spoke after a moment of glancing at Steve, “And you, Stark?”, wanting to see how he reacted because there were a just a little too much anger and well-hidden grief for him to have many people left, and not completely sure why his gaze was familiar.

Stark’s gaze was hooded, not quite truthful as he thought of the few he cared for even if they weren’t blood, thought they missed him, even if he wasn’t sure why, thought of the ones that would have raised hell if they were alive – or weren’t plagued with Alzheimer’s, “No.”.

Steve’s eyes were sharp at Tony's answer, thinking that there were three people who cared, thought of JARVIS who surely would be raising hell in a special way to find Tony, thought that Peggy would be because he imagined that she and Howard had gotten close in their shared grief, “No?”, meeting Yinsen’s gaze, “So you’re a man who has everything,”, letting him see the gold that speckled his own, “and yet, nothing.”.

Tony looked his way, “And you, Steve?”.

He fiddled with his dog tags, looking away, “Hm, a few. Lost touch with most those I’d come close with over the years as distance kept us apart. The family that might as well been blood, only Becca’s left that I know well.”, playing with the little blue plastic ring that laid over his heart, “My fella though, he’s been thought dead for years. I don’t think so though, and that’s what keeps me going.”.

Tony’s brows furrowed at ‘Becca’, as it was familiar, though he would ultimately dismiss it as it wasn’t an uncommon name, even if he would be kicking himself later because Steve had told him a lot without actually saying he’d been in the ice for decades.

~

Both Tony and Yinsen were soldering, and Steve boxing with air to keep himself moving in front of the cameras when the door locking them in slid open with force.

Steve immediately shifted to between the two groups, body forcibly relaxed even if he was still coiled, and anyone with any sense was reminded of a cornered animal, seconds from lashing out with claw and fang.

Four armed men rushed in and were yelling, guns waving around and pointing at them to stand up with hands in the air before a man with a shaved head came in.

Steve thought that there was something cold and calculating about his gaze, a dangerous air around him that reminded him of some of Bucky’s Russian friends that had ended up with daggers tattooed on the sides of their necks. He knew then that this was the true leader, not the man who liked to smile and threaten in the same sentence.

He watched as the man walked forward, fiddling with the ring, eyes catching on Tony’s chest and the blue glow there from the arc reactor.

Steve in front of him as he reached out to touch the arc reactor, eyes broadly ringed with gold and a threat in them that just dared him to try and get past him.

They stared at each other for several long moments in silence, gauging the threat the other was to their plans and finding a calculating intelligence that was eerily similar. It didn’t take a genius to see that whatever the other saw, it was enough for Steve to broaden his stance, shoulders squaring and chin lifting up, giving Tony a shadow of a glimpse of Captain America, while the other man almost looked like he backed up with an oily smirk of a smile, “Relax.”.

There was a sharp smirk on Steve’s face as the other man continued to walk in front of him, trying to cover up how he’d backed off, “The bow and arrow once were the pinnacle of weapons technology. It allowed the great Genghis Khan to rule from the Pacific to the Ukraine. An empire twice the size of Alexander the Great and four times the size of the Roman Empire. But today,”.

Tony glanced at Yinsen while the man was distracted with Steve, unable to help the urge to prove he was the bigger bad while Steve just smirked and made it clear that he’d faced worst without a word, “whoever holds the latest Stark weapons rules these lands.”, and the man gestured _patience_.

He looked at the other two when it was clear Steve wasn’t impressed, casually backhanding him hard enough to bust his lip and make blood splatter but Steve didn’t budge, as he did, “And soon, it will be my turn.”.

He addressed Yinsen, speaking what neither of the two Americans understood, and Yinsen clearly tried to keep things calm, but they could see the fear in his eyes.

They had to watch as Yinsen was ordered to his knees, and the man went with a resigned air, his head being put on a metal anvil as something was heated white-hot, repeating a question that Yinsen just kept answering the same.

Tony stepped forward, quickly halting when the men raised every gun in the room at him in a flurry of motion, looking back and forth between them and the bald man, “What does he want? What do you want? A delivery date?”, careful to not look long on Steve, “I need him. He’s a good assistant.”. Not with the blonde looking anything but harmless, having slid between him and the guns without noise, something dark and dangerous in his eyes, before he turned that gaze on the bald man.

That man looked almost considering, holding up a hand to keep others from interfering as Steve moved forward regardless of how every gun had turned towards him, several almost firing if he hadn’t been in vicinity of their leader and if they hadn’t been scared shitless of what would happen if they accidentally shot him instead. It was almost worth respecting, that near-fearlessness of the blonde, and he chose to speak in the language the man had seemed proficient in that would exclude Tony Stark, “Некоторые считали бы глупым подражать человеку, который спустился под лед.”.

Steve smiled sharp, “Он узнал от человека, которого многие забудут. Этот человек действительно был тем, кого вы не хотели пересекать, если бы захотелось уйти самостоятельно. Или живым, если бы ты был мертв, чтобы причинить боль своему Панку.”, a threat implicit.

The man was quiet for a moment, “Вы говорите об Капитане Америке и Баки Барнсе?”.

They both ignored how Tony perked up a little at the one phrase that got across clear to him, _Kapitan Amerika_ , no matter how long it had been since he’d heard Russian.

Steve’s smile got sharper, “Стив Роджерс и Баки Барнс.”.

Yinsen got a vaguely contemplative look on his face as he connected ‘Steve Barnes’ to Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, recognizing there was a connection, and wondered if it was possible this Steve was related to the two, or if he was seeing a miracle, with Steve Rogers in the flesh nearly seventy years after he’d supposedly disappeared into the ice of the Artic.

The man switched back to English to address Tony, “You have until tomorrow to assemble my missile.”, before making a bit of a dramatic exit, thinking over why he got the sense it was _very_ important there was a distinction between Captain America and Steve Rogers, but couldn’t quite nail it down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> что вы делаете? - What are you doing?  
> Планы трахают вас. - Making plans to fucking gut you.  
> Скажи это снова, ублюдок! Попробуй! - Say that again, fucker! I dare you!  
> Я сказал, я делаю чертовски планы, чтобы трахать вас. - I said, I'm fucking making plans to fucking gut you.  
> Я не могу сильно помочь Старку с его собственным гребаным творением, и ты все равно покончишь со мной, когда он закончит, поэтому я прошу свое время думать о путях убить всех твоих ублюдков. - I can't much help Stark with his own fucking creation, and you're going to fucking kill me anyway when he's done, so I pass my time thinking of ways to kill all you fuckers.  
> Да, да. И это даже не принятие желаемого за действительное. Ты здесь мертвый человек. - Yeah, we are. And that's not even wishful thinking. You're a dead man walking here.  
> Я хотел бы! Знаешь, я пробовал. Пытался утопить мою печаль, даже упал на борт самолета во льду. Смерть не хочет меня без моего парня, думает, что я слишком много переживаю без него, чтобы держать меня в очереди. - I wish I was! I've tried, you know. Tried drowning my sorrow, even crash-landed a plane in ice. Death doesn't want me without my fella, thinks I'm too much trouble without him to keep me in line.  
> Ебаный Петух - Fucking faggot. ; Петух here, is specifically the Russian connotation of a homosexual in prison, in an insulting, derogatory manner. There should be a link attached to it if you want more details.
> 
> Некоторые считали бы глупым подражать человеку, который спустился под лед. - Some would consider it foolish to imitate a man that went down under the ice.  
> Он узнал от человека, которого многие забудут. Этот человек действительно был тем, кого вы не хотели пересекать, если бы захотелось уйти самостоятельно. Или живым, если бы ты был мертв, чтобы причинить боль своему Панку. - He learned from a man many would forget. That man was truly someone you didn't want to cross if you wanted to walk away on your own. Or alive, if you were dead-set on hurting HIS Punk.  
> Вы говорите об Капитане Америке и Баки Барнсе? - You speak of Captain America and Bucky Barnes?  
> Стив Роджерс и Баки Барнс. - Of Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes.


	4. Bittersweet Misfortune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All things must end. The good and the bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to finish this yesterday, and it wasn't like I knew exactly what I wanted to write, but the wrong plot bunny wanted to play. Nearly decided to post for 4th of July, but figured everyone had been waiting so patiently.  
> I hope no one hates me after this; this is not a happy chapter.  
> It does get better though in the next couple of chapters, so there is that.

Steve watched as Tony worked through the night, hammering out the chest piece and then the helmet of his suit of iron.

With Tony abandoning subtly for speed, Steve did as well, placing a couple of his home-made explosives on either side of the door.

He fiddled with small hand-held ones, for a belt’s worth, while Tony taped up his hands and pulled on leather gloves and jacket, wrapped a band around his neck.

He knocked aside a couple of tables for make-shift barriers, more to separate them from his explosives than to protect them from gunfire, while Yinsen helped Tony in the upper body of his armor, “Okay? Can you move?”.

He pulled his makeshift shield onto his back as Yinsen did the finer touches that couldn’t be done until the pieces were all lined up on top of each other on Tony, “Okay, say it again.”. Steve couldn’t look at Yinsen when he knew what that underlying tone beneath his demand meant, even as he flipped his knife over his fingers, thinking that he wouldn’t allow a repeat of Erskine.

Tony’s eyes were sharp as he kept glancing over at Steve, getting the oddest sense of déjà vu about a blonde carrying a shield, and the reason why was on the tip of his tongue, but other issues kept him from really thinking on it, “Forty-one steps straight ahead. Then sixteen steps, that’s from the door, fork right, thirty-three steps, turn right.”.

Steve ignored his glances, having no fucks to give if Tony figured out what he’d hadn’t been trying all that hard to hide, focusing on flipping his knife over and over his fingers.

He stiffened when he vaguely heard footsteps approaching the door in a rush, nearly drowned out by the sound of welding, before glancing over at Yinsen and Stark. Steve quickly stashed his knife out of sight of the door, having been careful out of habit to not do so in sight of the cameras, hoping the fools didn’t open the door before Yinsen got further in assembling Tony’s armor, because it was rigged to blow if the handle was turned. He watched, whole body tense, as the small slit that let them look through the door into inside opened, before the man yelled, “Yinsen! Yinsen! Stark!”, trying to be heard over the welding.

He all but ignored Tony’s and Yinsen’s urgently whispered conversation, “Say something. Say something back to him.”, recognizing a word here and there as it was close enough in root to Romanian for him to get a little more than the gist, “He’s speaking Hungarian. I don’t . .” “Then speak Hungarian.”.

Steve tried to assemble a sentence of Romanian in his head that could come across, “Okay. I know.”, while also mentally flipping through that huge packet of the events of the last roughly seventy years with emphasis on Hungary, “What do you know?”, just as Yinsen spoke. In Russian, “Мы делаем тонкую работу над ракетой!”.

It clicked, a mention of Hungary being a satellite state of the U.S.S.R. following the war, just as Steve realized that Yinsen’s lie was obviously terrible, and moved further away from the door while the men on the other side tried to barge in. He cursed as he realized Yinsen had finished assembling enough of Tony’s armor as being as good as they could get with the time they had left, and that the man had purposely lied terribly, knowing that they were too suspicious to give them more than a few moments to get reinforcements.

Steve cursed again, in Russian, as he readied one of his small explosives, eyes flicking over at Tony who luckily, was more tired than curious on how a supposed civilian (that wasn’t him) knew how to build a competent bomb, “How’d that work?”, ignoring how Yinsen paled a little at seeing his handiwork, “Oh, my goodness.”. His eyes wide as he looked at Steve, remembering an often-overlooked detail - Captain America had been born in war, “It worked all right.”.

Steve purposely didn’t look at Tony, didn’t want to see how he frowned in confusion while he said, “Jaq’s would have been better.”, thankful when Yinsen spoke, cutting of Tony, “How-“ “Let me finish this.”.

Tony was quiet for just a few seconds, knowing that this was not the time or place to press for answers, but the details of what he knew about Steve Barnes were not adding up for him to know _anything_ about explosives, having been too engrossed previously to see their creation, “Initialize the power sequence.”.

Yinsen dropped his wench to move to the computer Tony’s demanded earlier to do the programming of the ‘missile’, “Okay.”, readjusting his glasses to see better after they slipped down in the rush, “Now!”.

Yinsen was quick to start, “Function 11. Tell me when you see a progress bar.”, while Steve lobbed an explosive through the blown-apart door down the hall to where the terrorists were starting to appear, “It should be up right now.”, his voice hissing out between his teeth as he glanced over at the loud ‘BOOM’ Steve had created, “ _Yes_.”.

Tony glanced over just in time to see Steve toss another explosive on the already disoriented terrorists, a sense of urgency making him snap out, “Talk to me. Tell me when you see it.”, knowing Steve could only buy so much time. Even if he didn’t understand how _Steve_ could be buying them time, as it had never been part of his plan to account for the smaller man playing distraction.

Yinsen didn’t look over again as another explosion rocked the hall leading to their room, “I have it.”, even if Tony could do nothing but watch as he gave Yinsen instructions, “Press Control ‘I’.”, that the man followed, “I. Got it.” “I. Then Enter. ‘I’ and ‘Enter’.”.

He watched as Steve lobbed two in quick succession when a larger group tried to come up the hall, “Come over here and button me up.”, Yinsen rushing as they both could see Steve had four left, “Okay. All right.”, trying to keep his voice calm. “Every other hex bolt.”.

Yinsen couldn’t help glancing over as Steve lobbed another one, “They’re coming!”, “Nothing pretty, just get it done. Just get it done.”, and another, “They’re coming.”.

Tony’s voice was tight as he stared Yinsen down, “Make sure the checkpoints are clear before you follow me out, okay?”, recognizing a certain flare of recklessness that was springing to the other man’s eyes as he glanced between Steve’s two remaining explosives and the progress bar, at his quiet whisper, “We need more time.”.

He straightened, looking at Tony, “Hey,”, before taking a step towards Steve, “I’m gonna go buy you some time.”.

Steve got a serious moment of déjà vu of not Yinsen rushing toward danger, but himself, and Bucky instead of Tony yelling, “Stick to the plan!”.

He moved out from his blockade as Yinsen rushed forward, “Stick to the plan!”, picking up one of the flung aside guns and wildly firing out at the approaching men, yelling with Tony, “Yinsen!”. Steve rushed forward, ignoring his remaining explosives to grab a gun himself, “Yinsen! Steve!”.

Steve did kill shots, dropping bodies as Yinsen provided cover (unintentionally) while yelling, as they ran up the cave system to the entrance, the men warier after twenty or so had fallen prey to Steve’s explosives and retreating back.

His curse, “Fuck,”, was loud amongst the gun-cocking of the fifteen men aiming at Yinsen and him, dropping his gun to pull his shield off his back.

He knew he was going to be too late even as he dove to the side in a roll, shield held out between them and the guns, but he had to try, “YINSEN!”.

~

 _The Body twitched as some sense of_ wrong _hit him. A_ wrong _that hit like a sledgehammer after love-taps that had been happening for some time  –  was it hours, days, weeks, months? – but having gotten stronger in recent moments._

_Something was pulling them to wake despite being in cyrostasis._

_~_

Steve chucked his remaining explosives as he shoved the edge of his shield into the ground for a barrier between them and the explosion, ignoring the pain in his calf as he pressed down on the bleeding high on Yinsen’s gut. He knew the gunshots, each one of the five that had hit Yinsen before he’d managed to get his shield between them, were mortal wounds. At least two had hit the man’s lungs, could hear it in the gasping shallow breathes Yinsen took, but he had to try and help.

He wished he had something to ease the man’s pain, to ease his passing.

His eyes flashed to gold, and he grinned sharply when he heard a baying come up from behind him. He looked up just as Tony cleared the corner, “Yinsen! Steve!”, stepping back to let the man in his suit of armor kneel next to the dying man, “Stark.”.

He moved away, only half listening to Tony’s pleads, “Come on. We got to go.”, his voice cracking some at seeing the amount of blood pooling beneath Yinsen, unaware some of it had been from Steve, “Move for me, come on. We got a plan. We’re gonna stick to it.”, as he looked directly at the Grim.

The Grim had pinned the terrorist leader to the ground, and for a moment, the man was overlaid with the Hydra agent from so long ago, only that man’s soul had been eaten, and he smiled as he watched the Grim tear out the man’s soul with an agonizing scream to devour it. He had no sympathy for those who would kill good men because they threatened their dastardly plans, because good men aided those who would make a difference and make the world a better place.

Or perhaps he should say, good _man_.

He turned to look at Yinsen, and the way the dying man smiled, finally at peace, was more than merely familiar, “This was always the plan, Stark.”.

Steve had suspected so, could respect it, (as he had no room to criticize, not after his dive into the icy waters of the Artic,) but it didn’t he’d wanted this.

Tony continued to plead, large metal hands clasping as gently as he could at Yinsen, clinging like a child, “Come on, you’re gonna go see your family. _Please_ get up.”.

Steve pulled his shield out of the ground with a screech of the metal, before he was flicking it out like a discus and embedding it solidly into the chest of a terrorist just clearing the lip of the cave. He knew what Yinsen was going to say, heard it in Erskine’s voice, “My family is dead. I’m going to see them now, Stark. It’s okay. I _want_ this. I want _this._ Thank you for saving me.”.

He could hear the Grim come up behind him, moving to nose at Yinsen gently, and he hoped that Erskine’s next life was better than his last two, or if he would just stay in the Fields of Asphodel like he _deserved_ to spend eternity. He'd done more than his part, deserved an eternity of peace and happiness.

He turned and watched Yinsen breathe his last, a smile on his face, before he knelt opposite Tony, hands coming to the half-done necklace of pennies and bottle caps around his ankle beneath his sock that had two coins missing. Gently, he pulled off two more pennies, leaving only four pennies and six bottle caps left, and placed them over Yinsen’s eyes after he closed them for good.

If he had time, he would have done so much more than this, but this battle wasn’t over yet and he had little time to spare; There were still lives that need saving.

His eyes were full-blown gold as he looked at Tony, “Don’t waste his sacrifice. Don’t waste your life.”, before he chased after the howling Grim, rage boiling beneath his skin.

He didn’t care about the wounds he accumulated as he pushed himself, flung himself, from bad guy to bad guy. He bowled over some beneath his shield, and others he bashed down. Others met the end by the edge of his knife.

His blood roared in his ears, as he followed the Grim as it tore through just as many – if not more – of these terrorists, leading him to the very back of the cave system. He barely realized that he’d left Tony at the entrance, too angry, but the thought fled completely as he caught a glimpse of the Grim pawing at a dead-bolted door, whining softly.

A chill went down his spine, because he remembered the last time that the Grim had acted this way, and it involved innocents. More specifically,  _dead_ innocents.

He had to take a moment to steel himself, before he opened the door after removing the five different locks barring the door.The smell of decomp hit him hard once the door was even cracked, and he found himself throwing up after just a glimpse. Tears ran down his face because he had his answer about why Yinsen had cooperated for so long, and why he’d seemed to have given up on living by the time they'd arrived, only going through the motions.

They’d had his young children locked in this room, and they’d starved to death.

~

_“Double the sedative already gassing that icebox! The Asset’s getting restless!”_

_“_ _I don’t know why it’s getting restless while on ice. It’s never gotten restless before.”_

 _“It’s been restless since the_ Valkyrie _was pulled from the ice. Now it’s getting . . aggravated.”_

 _“_ _Why the hell would it be getting aggravated?! It obeys orders and that’s all. There is no joy, no fear, no sadness. It can’t_ get _angry!”_

 _“_ _Then how else do you explain its climbing heartrate!_ Clearly _, the Asset isn’t-“_

~

Steve stumbled away from that death room, remembering the concentration camps that he’d helped free, falling to his knees in front of different dead bodies and bringing his steady hands to ruffle through the corpses of the terrorists that the Grim had killed, looking for coins. He wanted to pay the ferryman even if their souls had long departed, so that they could meet their father in the Fields of Asphodel. It was the least he could do for them, and even if he tore every last coin from his bracelet, he didn’t have enough to place over the eyes of all the children, so he would take from the monsters who’d killed them.

He barely saw the bodies that he checked for coin, remembering that first concentration camp he’d come across and how they’d found it because they’d come in during a mass execution. He remembered how hard and blank Bucky’s face had been as he’d taken out the small bag of coins he’d carried and started putting them over the eyes of the dead, and when he’d run out, stripped any currency from anyone he could get his hands on. He remembered how silent tears had run down Bucky’s face at seeing a pair of little girls half-hidden beneath the bodies of their parents, while he’d thrown up until his stomach was empty then helped Bucky.

Reading that file and hearing about all that death for no good reason, and seeing something straight out of his nightmares repeat in real life once more, an ugly mix of feelings squeezed his heart.

It made him want to scream. It made him want to cry. It made him want to tear people from limb to limb.

He did not of that.

Steve put coins over the eyes of the dead children, didn’t look at how young some of these terrorists were, tossed away his busted shield, and moved forward.

Tony came back for him as he made it back to where Yinsen lay, “Pint-sized fury!”.

Steve tried to smile at seeing Tony still alive, even if his suit of armor was looking far worse for wear, but it came out as more of a grimace, mind still full of battles past and all the bodies that he’d found or made.

Tony didn’t comment at the dead look in his eyes, “We got to get out of here Steve,”, a quiet plea in his voice for Steve to not die as well.

Steve kept walking forward, not flinching at the dead bodies they passed on the way away from the cave into the desert.

He didn’t give Tony time to comment on all the blood on him, some from himself and wounds that had healed, some with the bullets still inside, some still bleeding, and the rest from the now-dead.

~

_He was surrounded by death._

_He’d woken and he’d not seen what he’d expecting and so he'd lashed out._

_He didn’t know what he was looking for, but it wasn’t there._

_Tension coiled his body and adrenaline buzzed through his veins._

_He was ready for a fight, and this wasn’t it._

_He was needed somewhere, and this wasn’t it._

_He was_ needed _-_

~

It had been hours after their escape from the cave, and even Steve was beyond exhausted.

Tony had shucked his armor once it was clear they weren’t being pursued, but by then the sun had been high in the sky and they were both dehydrated. Steve had grabbed two canteens, but had thought civilization was close enough that they could manage this in a day or two, and not the three plus that he’d realized it would be with how exhausted they were.

Nearly three months in captivity, and neither of them had been eating very well or very much, and so much of their energy had been used up in the escape. Steve in particular, as he’d been more than half-starved with his super-metabolism.

Still, they needed to get as far as they could before they rested, or at least until some sort of shade until the temperature dropped, or they wouldn’t make it at this rate.

Tony had passed out, so he’d pulled the other man onto his back, and kept going.

He thought it time to put that many-times-cursed stubbornness to use.

Steve chuckled a little at the memories of how many times he’d been cussed out – by nearly everyone who’d ever _really_ known him – for being excessively stubborn, even if it was weak, “Wha’d’ja know Bucky? It might save our lives!”.

He leaned a little (a lot) on the Grim that had followed them, “I told you so, Bucky! You said my stubbornness would get us killed, and I said it would save our lives!”, continuing to laugh as he wrapped one arm around the broad shoulders of the Grim, “I was right Bucky! You owe me a drink!”.

Steve found himself on his knees before he realized it, only kept upright by the Grim that had settled behind his back as he leaned Tony against his legs, “I had to be right sometime Bucky . .”.

His voice was quiet as he stared up at the bright sky, shading his eyes against the sun, “Only wish you were here to see it . . You’ll be skeptical when I tell you . . –“, catching the glint of something metallic coming their way.

He rubbed at his eyes, not sure if he was imagining things, but that looked like some kind of aircraft.

Steve pushed himself up, raising his arms and waving, “HEY! OVER HERE!”.

All his blood rushed to his head at the sudden movement, and he fell back to his knees, feeling light-headed.

He didn’t see what had found them before he passed out as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will try to get the next chapter written by the end of the week, so that you don't stew in the angst I've created.  
> I didn't mean to, but I've been reading a beautiful meta on tumblr in the last almost two weeks that describes Steve's PTSD, and I may have been a wee bit inspired, and realized that he would have been triggered in a scene like this.  
> If anyone's interested, the tumblr page I was on was: mcu meta. Completely worth reading.


	5. Pall Humor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, otherwise known as: the Misadventures of Steve and Clint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, because I left with such angst in the last chapter, I tried to bring some more light-hearted moments in the chapter with a rush put on it. I may or may not have had a productive three days of work as quite a few details regarding the rest of Part Two, particularly this chapter, may have come to me during work and I wrote them on paper towels.  
> I'll have you know, I tried to make a moment pure fluff, and couldn't help myself - at best, it's a little bit, just a moment of plain fluff. There is a reason why most fluff moments end up in Stories of Morpheus, and that is that it doesn't quite fit the tone presented around it.
> 
> Also, little easter eggs regarding two of the CA showgirls' identities here.  
> 

Steve wasn’t a stranger to waking up in different places than the ones he’d last been aware of.

It could be said that he had a lifetime of experience with passing out and coming to in very different locations.

During the war, the most time that had passed while he had been unaware had been a couple of hours after a particularly good whack to the head by a misfired Hydra weapon at a wall behind him.

After, well, waking up roughly seventy years later _not_ in ice, nothing quite beat that.

Every time his eyes closed though, he feared a repeat.

So most times, he just didn’t. Didn’t sleep. He didn’t need much anyway, maybe four hours and he was as functional as anyone else after a full eight. He could push on nearly three days before exhaustion dulled his reflexes and he started looking a little too ragged around the edges.

During the war, he’d not pushed past a day and a half because Bucky was there. Bucky didn’t let him get away with that shit, nor had he really tried.

He’d just slept better with Bucky on watch, with Bucky nearby like he always had. He knew Bucky had as well, only slept really at all when he could have a hand over his heard so he fell asleep knowing he was alive and could wake up in a moment’s notice if his heart stopped, if his chest stopped rising.

Now, he pushed until his body could go no further, sleeping in hour bursts, jerking awake with the emptiness beside him, with the quiet sounds of another heart and another breathe gone.

His first instinct when waking up was a duck and roll, dodging the gunfire and explosions of his memories, and that instinct to fight flared up when he recognized nothing around him.

He didn’t fight that instinct; not with the fear that maybe another seventy years had passed, particularly with the medical gear flung everywhere that he didn’t recognize.

Steve lashed out, ripping the wires attached to him away and throwing them at those that surrounded him, before grasping whatever was nearby and flinging it at whoever got too close.

He wished for his shield, because ever since Howard and Peggy had given it to him, it was his assurance that no matter what, he could protect himself, and others. It wouldn’t matter if his body would stay big and strong, the shield was his, and he could wield it. It was the next best thing to having Bucky with him.

Without it, without _Bucky_ , he couldn’t feel safe.

He tore free of the hands that tried to catch him, barreled through those that tried to stop him.

Steve thought these men and women were lucky that he no longer had a knife – even if he was angry that _they’d taken **his** knife_ – but he wasn’t defenseless.

He threw a punch and one man went flying back ten feet before a familiar figure came through the door.

He nearly punched Fury regardless of recognition, voice clipped as he straightened, body tense, “Sir.”.

Fury did not look pleased, “Captain,”, an undercurrent of anger clear in the way he moved forward, “Would you care to explain where you were for the last nearly seven months?”.

Steve wasn’t pleased either, wasn’t going to play this bullshit game other to be a little shit, “The last three months, I was in a cave in the Kunar Province in Afghanistan. I thought you would know that. The previous four months, I was in New York City, as you left me.”.

Fury’s eye narrowed, not particularly having the patience to deal with that attitude after the stress of the last three months put on him to find the other man after the hostage tape came out and he’d been forced to acknowledge that Steve had escaped their surveillance, “Why did you leave protective custody?”.

The way Steve’s face, instead of displaying his temper, but closed off, was concerning, “I went for a breather. Overheard two men plotting to kill Tony Stark, after mentioning that they’d had Howard killed by someone they called the ‘Asset’.”.

Fury made a mental note to see if someone could get a real evaluation of Rogers’ mental state, as that was a standard, ‘fuck off I don’t want to talk about it’ tone, and anyone in his line of work knew that meant there was a serious lack of trust, more than the standard suspicion. The fact that Rogers didn’t trust him, didn’t bode well for his future plans, “And you thought that meant you had to prevent it yourself?”.

Steve smirked at the flicker of a ‘oh-my-god-steve-why’ look on Fury’s face, at the way he could tell Fury wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose and look up at the heavens for answers, “I didn’t know who those men were. For all I knew, they could have been one of yours.”.

Fury thought that Rogers’ suspicion made him perfect for an agent, because no good one didn’t have it, “How did you even get papers?”. Even as he carefully kept from reacting at the knowledge Howard Stark had been assassinated, that Tony Stark almost had been.

Steve’s smirk wasn’t anything kind, “I was owed a favor from the old neighborhood.”, which threw off nearly everyone in the room, because it was almost cruel, almost mean, nothing like what they expected from Captain America.

Fury just looked closer at him, getting the sense that for all that Captain America was all law and order, justice, and everything good, Steve Rogers didn’t have quite as clean of a record. It made him wonder what the hell else was missing from his files, what else his predecessor had taken with her to retirement about Steve Rogers.

~

Steve eyed the text message he’d gotten from Pepper once Becca had gotten him a new phone, with the same number as before.

_[Are you okay?]_

He texted back as he got off the subway in Brooklyn, pulling his hat low over his eyes to obscure his face from any cameras.

**[I’m fine. Just reacquainting myself to life outside a cave.]**

He wasn’t surprised when he got a text back immediately, thankful that she didn’t call, because if she’d called, then he might have cracked.

_[If you need anything, just ask. You don’t have to do this on your own.]_

He would have cracked because it was unfair that he was hearing Bucky in those words, but it wasn’t.

_[Steve, we care, it’s not a weakness to ask. It’s not like Stark Industries doesn’t have the money to cover anything you need either.]_

He was glad that she _wasn’t_ Bucky though, because Bucky, being the asshole he was, would have pushed. Would have pushed and shoved and made him take his help like he always had.

_[Tony wants me to ask when you’re coming back. Are you coming back?]_

He walked the unfamiliar streets of his home, ignoring the first and second text, thinking on the third on his way to the compromise Fury had given him. (The compromise he’d given Fury, under threat of disappearing for good, if his demands weren’t met.)

**[I don’t know. Give me some time.]**

He hadn’t gotten more than a step before Pepper responded.

_[However long you need. I won’t press you.]_

_[Just, can you stay in contact? I don’t want you to disappear.]_

_[And there aren’t many competent people that could handle Tony I can vent to.]_

Steve found himself smiling a little at Pepper, able to read between the lines and feel the care, chuckling a little at her last text. He texted back before putting his phone away as he found himself standing in front of an apartment building owned covertly – no one but three other people at S.H.I.E.L.D. knew – by a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.

**[Of course, Pepper. And thank you.]**

Fury had demanded that he live in the vicinity of a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and he demanded privacy, and as much anonymity as he could get, in return.

They’d compromised in that he live in the apartment building owned by an agent, with the agent aware that he was an asset in hiding, but unaware of his identity.

He wasn’t happy about the compromise, but he recognized it was the best he was going to get with Fury. Had accepted that Fury would use the other two people who knew of the apartment building for recon, but Fury had pushed for his identity to be a top-secret easily.

It had been clear that it was for his protection, because the less people who knew that he wasn’t as big as before, supposedly weakened, the better for his health. It didn’t mean that he wouldn’t disappear in a heartbeat, wouldn’t scream to the stars and the sun for all to hear, if he got even a faintest glimmer of a hope of Bucky’s whereabouts, no matter the risk to himself.

He’d just knocked on the door, had been about to knock again, when he heard a loud thump-crash and a, “Aww, Pizza Dog, nooooo,”.

Steve tried the door handle, found it locked, and quickly picked it, letting himself in to see a tall, lithe blonde man sprawled out on the floor, looking like he’d tripped over a scruffy golden retriever, reaching out for a hearing aid that seemed to have fallen out during his tumble.

He blinked, then stepped forward, picking up the hearing aid and holding it out with one hand going through the signs for _‘Are you okay?’_.

The man smiled lopsidedly, grabbing the hearing aid, “I’m good, little man.”, before looking at the door, “Though I could have sworn I locked that.”.

Steve sheepishly smiled back, “It was. I picked it. Thought you might need help.”, gesturing at the pair of hair pins once again holding his bangs back when the man looked somewhere between suspicious at his lock-picking, and touched at the offer of aid, answering the unspoken question, “My previous landlord had it out for anyone he thought was a fairy, even if he rented out right in the middle of where most lived in this area, and our lock was busted because he wouldn’t fix it after the last renter had gotten robbed. I got used to picking it to get in.”.

He raised his hand in a _‘I understand’_ , “No problem, little man. Assholes will be assholes.”, before shooing his dog out from under his feet while he tried to stand, “So, what brings you around to my corner of Brooklyn?”.

The dog paid him no mind, flopping down right in front of the man just as he took a step forward, making him pinwheel his arms for a moment in a struggle to keep his balance, before Steve reached out and caught the back of the man’s shirt, “Looking for an apartment. I just got back to New York after some time away.”.

The man managed to catch his balance with the assistance, “I do have a few rooms available. How’d you hear about me?”.

Steve took a moment to think on how to describe his relationship with Fury before choosing to be vague, “Somebody recommended me. I told him I wanted to live in Brooklyn, somewhere near my old neighborhood, and he told me this address.”.

The man had already known that his new tenant was in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s version of witness protection, and that meant having an agent living nearby, but asked because he preferred to give the man the illusion that they were just a pair of men working out a tenant-landlord relationship.

He held out a hand to Steve once he was on his feet without risking tripping over his dog, “The name’s Clint Barton.”.

Steve smiled, and gave a firm handshake, “Nice to meet you, I’m Steve Barnes.”.

Clint didn’t so much as bat an eyelash at the name, only getting a vague sense of missing something obvious.

~

Steve moved into Clint’s apartment building by end of that day, hauling everything he had in one big duffle bag, mostly full of the clothes Becca had gotten him for his job as Pepper’s assistant.

When he checked his phone again, Pepper had texted him.

_[Did you hear about Tony stopping the arms dealing?]_

He tossed the duffle onto the single bed before he texted back.

**[I caught part of the news conference. He did good.]**

Becca had gotten a good number of his personal things back over the years, or had held onto them in the first place. It had surprised him some to see a portfolio of a lot of his artwork kept among the stuff she had given when he’d come back from Afghanistan – after being whacked over the head for worrying her shortly followed by a bone-crushing hug – some in better condition than others, but it seemed like Janet and May had tracked down every piece they could find after the war and compiled them.

He had cried a little at seeing their note, ‘ _We always said you did good art, Steve. Anything done by the ‘mysterious and unknown American artist’ SGR has become big now, with your work of two men together becoming a poster of the free love movement. Last I saw, the cover art of one of your eight-pagers that have come to symbolize free love in all forms, was going for a couple of thousand at auction._

 _Your love for your fella as depicted in a good amount of your work has changed the world, Steve, and inspired a generation to love whoever they pleased without fear.’_ , particularly when he had found the sleeve of black and white photos Bucky had published for change, his envied cursive _JBB_ on the backs, ‘ _Your fella had quite the eye, Steve. Took a bit of work to find all these, because they’ve become iconic shots of Brooklyn in the ‘30’s and ‘40’s, and no one wanted to sell them, but we found as many as we could. Thought it fitting that you and your fella’s work be together, even if the two of you couldn’t be._ ’.Steve very carefully laid the portfolio next to the personal

Steve very carefully laid the portfolio next to the personal sketchbooks Becca had kept and refused to give to collectors or museums, the ones all full of Bucky and holding the flowers Stephanie had been given.

_[Yes, he has. Though our stocks are suffering some with the abrupt change, as stockholders are unsure of what Tony will come up with now weapons are off the market.]_

The one sketch of his mother that he’d framed with the little black and white photo of his father in uniform with a black teen was set next to the portfolio and sketchbooks before he responded.

**[The arc reactor. He’ll perfect it. He nearly has.]**

Steve thought it poetic that Evie’s most ambitious work would finally be released by the one person who could rival her or Howard’s engineering genius, though he imagined that part of the reason it had gotten as far as it had was because of Grace. From what he’d understood, Grace had more than likely figured out the physics problem of making the internal battery and the power system function in a feedback loop.

_[The arc reactor? I haven’t heard Tony mention that in years, and only when truly spectacularly drunk. He said something about how one large one could power half of New York City, for three lifetimes with next to no maintenance, if an initial power source that didn’t cost half a million dollars or be radioactive could be found.]_

He heard Clint trip over his dog again.

 **[It was the clean energy brainchild of Evie Barnes, Grace Nelson** **, and Howard Stark. If Tony could solve that problem that kept it from going on the market nearly fourty years ago, then Stark Industries will be set.]**

Steve poked his head up the stairs and saw Clint had rolled on his back, trying to hold a slice of pizza high enough in the air that the dog currently sprawled on his chest couldn’t get it.

_[Stane doesn’t think so. He is trying to convince Tony to go back to weapon-building.]_

He left the apartment after texting Pepper one last time, turning off his phone as he headed deeper into Brooklyn and towards an old friend.

**[Don’t trust him.]**

~

Steve had been _angry_ after a visit with Becca.

He hadn’t been the only one livid when she’d spat out that she’d gotten word from old friends about a man with golden eyes and a metal left arm having been seen stumbling out of a building in the D.C. area with multiple tranquilizer darts sticking out of him, before being taken away in a rush under armed guard. Between the two of them they’d tossed back more than one bottle of hard liquor as she’d seethed about how the man with golden eyes had been like a ghost, carrying the Barnes’ features to a T, and when the witness had been dragged in front of her and shown a picture of Bucky, had right away said that was what the man had looked like.

Only with longer, lanky hair, sallow skin, and a swagger in his prowl that went straight past _dangerous_ to _predator-out-for-blood_.

It was proof that Bucky was alive – not definite, but the best they would get without actually seeing the man themselves – but it was also proof that he’d been held against his will, likely since the moment he’d fallen from that damn train.

Becca had stopped him from charging out right then and razing D.C. to the ground in his search – he had seen enough war to know how to destroy a city, and experienced enough of it that he thought he stood a good chance of being able to do it by himself – by reminding him that he’d come to her for another purpose.

Reminded him that he was trying to protect Howard’s son, and with gold eyes herself, had said to leave this part of the search to her. That she would find Bucky – and all he would have to do is tear his way through his captors and get him back.

Steve had been chuckling harshly to himself in memory of her sharp grin, saying she was leaving the easy part to him, before telling him that whatever he did that HE WAS NOT TO GO THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR, when he heard the smack of skin against hard objects in the streets near his new apartment.

He'd been rushing forward before he could think to do so, charging in with his fists raised and yelling out, “Hey! Pick on-!”, when he took in the ‘fight’.

Steve just stared at how Clint, appearing to have been taking his dog for an evening walk, had slipped in an unidentifiable puddle next to a dumpster, slammed his side into said dumpster, before being pulled by his dog back through the rest of the puddle, only to trip over his dog when it stopped suddenly to eat a disgusting piece of pizza. He was taking a step forward, honestly not sure if he’d just witnessed a walking disaster, when, with his face smushed into the ground and hands thrown out in a (futile) attempt to catch himself, Clint whined, “Aw, hearing aids, noooo.”.

He winced when saw one hearing aid had rolled through more of that unidentifiable substance, and the other had been crushed under his hand as he’d tried to catch his fall.

Steve approached him, making sure his steps were as loud as they could get, hoping either the excessive volume or vibrations along the ground caught the other man’s attention, because something about Clint didn’t read as _civilian_ to him no matter how he thought a desk-position would suit the surprisingly clumsy agent, something that read as _soldier_. He’d known enough soldiers, been a soldier long enough, to never do something as stupid as knowingly surprising another, particularly when he’d recognized the shape of at least two knives on his person.

He’d been half-deaf long enough to know that surprising one who’d been through a hell, was just asking for pain. (Bucky had never, but one other recruit had once, had come from his left when he couldn’t see them. Even he’d been able to hear the high-pitched screech after he’d lashed out and kicked the man in the Johnson, too used to being blind-sided in fights.)

Steve pocketed the filthy one, to clean before returning, as Clint lifted his face from the filthy ground, dirt and other things smeared across his skin, to almost-pout at him, voice loud without being able to hear it (really at all), “STEVE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”.

His hands spoke for him, _‘Going back to [your] home.’_ , pointing briefly at Clint, because he didn’t know what his name-sign was, didn’t know if he should make one for him, didn’t think to spell his name out.

Deaf culture had never been something he’d been a part of, but he’d built something of his own with the Barnes. (He’d given Bucky the sign of both hands crossed over the middle of his chest, middle finger over his index on his right hand, followed shortly by having his fists pressed together over his heart with his thumbs extended up, then down, up, then down. Becca’s had always been his right hand made into an L, with the thumb under his chin, brought down to tap against his left hand, followed shortly by his right fist raised near his face, fingers facing him, to be twisted with fingers facing away.) He didn’t know the etiquette.

Clint took the hand he offered to help him up, and the two walked back together, talking with their hands the whole way. Neither brought up how long it had been since they’d talked like this, nor how they’d only ever had a few people to talk with in the first place, and how most of those people were gone.

It was far from the last time that Steve was doing something – in the apartment or not – and would hear Clint fall, and/or hit something – or just in general, be clumsy. He would come to make sure Clint was fine, and more times than not, to fish him out of whatever he’d gotten stuck in.

He would get Clint untangled from where his shirt had gotten hooked against a nail in the wall where he’d been about to hop down from a perch on a bookcase.

He would help him get unstuck from the washer machine.

He would catch the back of his pants before he tripped into traffic.

He pulled him out of the way of a stop sign.

Steve was honestly impressed with how much of a walking human disaster Clint could be. (He chalked up the dog’s survival to his past with living on the street, because that dog ate _way_ too much human food not to be, as Clint seemed barely able to take care of himself, let alone a dog.)It also gave him a massive dose of déjà vu.He had a whole new appreciation for how Bucky was always fishing him out of fights, having to rescue Clint from his own clumsiness.

It also gave him a massive dose of déjà vu.He had a whole new appreciation for how Bucky was always fishing him out of fights, having to rescue Clint from his own clumsiness.

He had a whole new appreciation for how Bucky was always fishing him out of fights, having to rescue Clint from his own clumsiness.

He also had a whole new appreciation for how much Bucky had done to keep him in good health, after he’d taken over Clint’s kitchen after the fourth time the man had started a small fire by burning his toast and the third time he’d burnt water, and found the man had seven different local restaurants on speed-dial. He’d taken to darning and stitching up holes, (and removing blood stains,) after the fifth time the man had worn hole-y clothing. He might have made the man wear a modified medical-alert bracelet that said, ‘If lost, call Steve Barnes: xxx-xxx-xxxx’, after the fourth time the man had gone out for a simple grocery run, had gotten turned around somehow, and ended up calling from some strange place, saying he was going to be late for dinner. He knew at least two of those had been S.H.I.E.L.D. missions, but twice had been elsewhere because of other reasons. He figured that was enough reason to do that.(And he knew none of this was new, considering how lasses

(And he knew none of this was new, considering how lasses faire the other renters of Clint’s apartments were about Clint nearly starting fires, with getting stuck and/or tangled in odd places, and seemed to have developed a routine to help their landlord out. The little old lady, nearly the age he should have been, that lived next to him had told him that nearly everyone who loved in the apartment building stayed, not just because Clint kept rent low, where they could afford it, but because most of them were afraid of how the hell that man would survive on his own, considered it a miracle he’d gotten as old as he had.)

He might have also gotten a whole new level of appreciation for Bucky giving him as much independence as he had, because a week in, he’d wanted to bundle Clint up in a blanket and refuse to let the man go anywhere on his own.

Particularly, after while they were innocently walking down the streets of Brooklyn, Clint was dragged ahead by his dog – Steve refused to call him  _Pizza Dog_ like Clint, no matter how apt it was – only to be tripped into a black van, dragged in while whoever was saying something in Russian about money owed, before the van sped off, with Clint inside.

He’d gotten a glimpse of the tattoos on the hands, and knew where to go even as he ran through the streets after the van.

It didn’t matter, after all, if he lost the van, when he knew where it was headed.

He came to that warehouse with Becca in tow.

Steve might have enjoyed busting the _front door_ down as Becca laughed at his dramatics, thinking about how many times Bucky had gotten to swoop in and come to his aid, and now here he was, for somebody else.

He thought Bucky would still be cursing him out for having to **_of-fucking-course, break the damn FRONT door down, in your fucking rescue, you damn dramatic punk_** , because multiple guns turned his way, and more than one of these men had nearly shot him, if at his back hadn’t been Becca.

They paled at seeing Becca, slowly hunching in on themselves as he started in on ripping them a new one with Becca smirking in approval behind him, “Ты, ублюдки, какой ты, черт возьми, думал? Ты даешь Братве чертовски плохое имя, чертовски похищая кого-то в чертовском дневном свете. Вы позорите имя своего пахан!”.

Clint just watched wide-eyed from where he’d been tied to a chair, more surprised at hearing Steve curse and speak in Russian then anything, using the distraction he provided to free his arms completely – as he had thought Steve might try to help, and had been rushing to get himself free, as well as activating his short-range distress beacon for one specific person, before Steve could get hurt.

Only for it to look like Steve didn't need him to protect him here.

He didn’t know the déjà vu knowing that the distress beacon was being sent to one person would have given Steve, who had once done the same by yelling for Bucky and counting to ten.

Steve then turned to Becca, who waved a hand for the men to step away from Clint, as the two began haggling in Russian regarding how to take care of Clint’s debt to the Bratva.

In the midst of arguing for only a five percent interest after the first five hundred would be paid by this time next month, Steve paused at the sound of somebody coming in through the back of the warehouse, listening as he heard men be quietly knocked out on the route to them.

He had the fleeting hope of it being _Bucky_ , broke free, before a woman dressed in black slipped into the room, a pair of guns swiveling between everyone in the room as she spoke directly to the other blonde in the room, “Clint, break yourself free already. And do I even want to know what trouble you got into now?”.

Steve was hit by a déjà vu in a major way by her dry, exasperated tone, the harsher edges to her constants of someone used more to speaking Russian than English, the dark eyes flicking from threat to threat yet lingering fondly for just a moment on a blonde as they visually checked them over for injuries. He was reminded of Bucky, and he knew he wasn’t the only one by how Becca gasped softly beside him.

For just a moment, he saw himself where Clint was, only surrounded by bullies, and him bleeding from a good hit to the jaw that split his lip with an impressive shiner, and Bucky where the woman was, prowling forward between him and the bullies, promising pain to the others with his eyes even as he asked if he was fine.

He wondered if this was how they’d looked like before Bucky had fallen.

Loss hit him like a hammer to the head, and all he wanted was just one more moment with Bucky, no matter what it cost him.

Becca caught his shoulder, caught him before he could curl up on himself and lose himself in memories of a thousand moments like this, her eyes like gold and he’d heard her grief and anger echo his in her voice, “We’ll get him back, Steve.”.

The woman looked at them, and he could have sworn she saw the same sort of almost-familiar in him as he saw in her, particularly as she’d glanced at Clint for a split second.

Clint spoke up as he stood with much more grace and balance than he’d ever shown before, letting him catch a glimpse of the soldier, the agent, even as his eyes were concerned, “Steve, how do you know the Russian Matriarch of Brooklyn?”.

His smile was wry, even as his eyes were still sad at the reminder that Bucky was still gone, “I grew up with her, go way back. She’s family.”.

The woman next to Clint watched them warily, guns still up at the rest of the people in the room.

Clint looked between them, and Becca spoke up, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him close, silently offering support, “This punk picked a fight in an alley, and Bucky helped end it, ended up bringing him home too. The two were inseparable until Bucky joined the war, best friends and then something more. Bucky ended up MIA some years ago, but we don’t believe he’s dead, even if everyone else does.”.

She eyed Clint with dark eyes, pointing a finger at him, “If I find out you’ve done anything to upset Steve, I’ll be heaven compared to what hell Bucky will do to do. Just remember that.”, before quirking a smile as she led Steve out, dragging him with her with the intent of them finding out exactly how much Steve could drink before he was drunk, as she drank while flipping through the reports that should have come through by now of what her people in D.C. had found in regards to her brother, waving him off, “Don’t forget to bring the first five hundred you owe me in a month either, or we’ll have to repeat this.”.

Steve left with her as he caught a glimpse of the woman dragging Clint the other way, hand firm around his arm, “Do I even want to know what the hell you were thinking, borrowing money from Russians?”, eyes flicking back and forth between visually checking Clint over further, on looking his way, and staring down the other members of the Bratva, as Clint sheepishly began, “Natasha . .”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ты, ублюдки, какой ты, черт возьми, думал? Ты даешь Братве чертовски плохое имя, чертовски похищая кого-то в чертовском дневном свете. Вы позорите имя своего пахан! - You fuckers, what the fuck were you fucking thinking? You're giving the Bratva a fucking bad name, fucking abducting somebody in fucking broad daylight. You shame the name of your pakhan!
> 
> Bucky's name-sign: Love and Close friend, and Sweetheart  
> Becca: Sister, and Rebel
> 
> For anyone who hasn't looked closer at the titles of things in Part One, and more particularly in Part Two, they are little hints to that chapter. Perhaps even some juxtaposition with Part One and Part Two titles.  
> If anyone is curious, look at the definitions and synonyms. I may have been snickering for chapter three/nine and the title of Part Two most particularly.  
> Clint is awesome, and his comics are some of the few from Marvel universe I read without spinning in circles trying to find the beginning, because he's hilarious. I honestly wish they'd done more with his comic book roots in MCU instead of what they gave us in Age of Ultron.


	6. To Liberate for a Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, otherwise known as the Black Bag Job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Black Bag Job: The secret entry into a home or office to steal or copy materials.
> 
> malen'kiy prints: Little Prince

Steve sat in awkward silence with four other men, finding himself hunching his shoulders forward and trying to make himself smaller with the tendrils of anxiety coming to him with one of the men very bluntly staring and another casually flicking a switchblade open and close.

The way he moved with the switch-blade didn’t bother him, even reminded him of Bucky some with the casual air of violence if one of the other three stepped out of bounds, but the one staring was making him anxious.

Before the war, when someone had stared, it had almost always been in a bad way or at least a ‘look-at-the-freak’ way. After getting big, it had been to violate him with their eyes, a ‘how-can-I-use-you’ way, or murder way. In the future, it had been with awe and disappointment from S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, a ‘what-a-fag’ way when he blurred gender norms like he was doing now with his earrings and feminine blouse, or surprise at his language when they thought they could walk right over him.

The Hispanic man was just _staring_ , and Steve couldn’t quite figure out what the hell the man was thinking because it was like nothing he was usually looked at with.

The tall pale man with the switchblade stopped flicking it to point it at the staring man, speaking in a thick Eastern European accent, “Luis, quit the staring. You make _malen’kiy_ _prints_ uncomfortable.”.

The man staring, Luis, opened and closed his jaw a couple of times before words got out in a rush, “HowdoesthiskidknowtheRussianmatriarchofBrooklynKurt?”.

The man with the switchblade, Kurt, closed his switchblade, glancing over with pale blue eyes at Steve, “She calls him long-lost family.”, before looking over at the two other men who stayed quiet, addressing the mocha-skinned man that often served as his partner, and more recently as his roommate, “Dave, will you listen to request?”.

Dave was looking at Steve like someone who knew something but couldn’t remember what it was, “Why did you bring him to us, Kurt?”, a faint Cuban accent spicing his words.

Steve spoke up, figuring then was as good as anytime, “I asked Becca if she knew a crew that could help me with a job.”, not saying that she’d picked them because amongst the less-legal circles, they were known to be something like Robin Hood and his Merry band of thieves, what with how they only stole from those with plenty to give to the less fortunate. She had shown them something like a dossier on the group, and he thought they were the best suited for this, even if corporate espionage like he was asking wasn’t there typical fare, because what he planned was nothing less than a Robin Hood-worthy feat.

The fourth man, leaned forward, eyes curious and tone just a touch wary, “What type of job?”.

Steve knew he was the man he needed to convince, and even if his heart was in the right place as he wouldn’t do as he did unless it was, a certain amount of money would be needed because the man only did a job when he needed money.

Steve met his eyes resolutely, “What do you know of Obediah Stane?”, needing the man to back him, because he thought he could do this on his own, but it would be barely, and he wasn’t sure of whether he could do it without alerting Stane to his suspicions.

The man looked at Kurt, understanding that if Kurt was bringing them the job that this was being backed by the local Bratva, and worried about the connections to organized crime, “Not much. He was, and is acting vice president of Stark Industries, with time as acting CEO after Howard Stark died until his son was twenty-one. What does he have to do with the job you’re bringing us? Which is?”.

Steve brushed his bangs aside despite how they were pinned back by a pretty plastic blue star that Becca insisted matched the color of his eyes, “Some months ago, I overheard Stane and an unknown man casually discussing having Tony Stark kidnapped and killed. The way they talked, it was clear that they had Power,”, trying to convey past how his mind wanted to overshadow these four with the Howling Commandoes, the emphasis on _power_ , “and I knew that if I’d tried to come forward with this, it would be swept under the rug.”. He leaned forward, and showed his Stark Industries ID card, to get to nearly all things of Stark Industries that Pepper had access to it, which was all as she was all but acting CEO in name, “I got hired as Pepper’s assistant in an attempt to find out who they were, and find some evidence to back me up before I went to the proper authorities.”.

The three passed it around themselves, the leader taking a moment more to inspect it further because he recognized the high-quality data chip and the electronic strip unique to Stark Industries that was nigh on impossible to counterfeit.

He handed back the ID card, “So you want us to break into Stark Industries? For something that may or may not exist?”.

Steve leaned forward, unaware of the flecks of gold in his eyes, “Breaking in won’t be the hard part. We have to get to Stane’s private server, find most particularly proof that he armed the Ten Rings with Stark weapons, though anything illegal is a bonus, and upload that to the web. Let the world fucking judge the fucking back-stabber.”.

He may have said _back-stabber_ but his eyes were saying _murderer_ , and it was quite clear that Steve was settling here instead of finding a way to straight up take Stane _out_.

Kurt spoke towards their leader, “Scott, you take job?”.

Scott was quiet for a moment, studying Steve, “Why did you want a crew? You look like the type with a plan, you even said you had one.”.

Steve glanced away, reminded again of how much he missed the Howling Commandoes, “It’s been a long time since I did more than pickpocket rich folks. My other skills were, you can say, _on ice_ with the changing times. Most particularly the alarm system.”.

Dave gave him a funny look, catching that there was a second meaning hidden there, but it was forgotten as he remembered why Steve looked familiar, blanching, “You were on the hostage tape with Stark.”, ignoring that niggling belief that he’d seen Steve before that somewhere.

Scott paled, and ignored his own belief that Steve reminded him of the images he’d dug up of Steve Rogers before the serum, thinking as Dave did that he was familiar because of that hostage tape.

Even if the wry smile and look in Steve’s eyes made him think that he was missing something rather obvious, “Yeah, I was. Stane organized that little vacation for us, only we weren’t meant to come back.”.

He put it aside for the moment to think on later, he needed the money from this job or Cassie and Maggie wouldn’t have a home much longer, “So what’s the plan?”.

~

Steve wanted Pepper out of the building while Scott looked for a sectioned-off part of the electrical system of the HQ of Stark Industries that would be Stane quarantining his private work files on his own server. So he took her out to lunch, while Stane was busy with a meeting with the Secretary of Defense Alexander Pierce, and Dave was with Kurt, breaking into Stane’s home office in case the server was there.

He knew Stane had a server, the man was too smart to not back up evidence of every misdeed he’d done so that if he was ever caught, he could throw everyone else under the bus in exchange for easy treatment. He hoped the man had taken to recording conversations with his partner-in-planning-Stark-deaths so that he had hard evidence that the kidnapping had been a premeditated murder attempt.

Pepper looked tired, sagging in her seat when she sat down with a coffee, “Steve, it’s good to see you.”.

He smiled, “As it is you. Have things calmed down yet since Tony came back?”, wanting her to relax at least a little, he didn’t want to meet her grandmother again with the knowledge that he let her stress herself out into a breakdown. Particularly since Becca had finally got him in touch with somebody from his past, and he had called her just that morning.

He was going to go cook a wonderful little meal after this outing, because she was coming over for dinner, and he was already anxious about that. He wanted to leave a good impression after seventy years of silence, particularly as he explained why it looked like he hadn’t aged a day.

She slumped down further, pulling down the brim of her hat so no one could see the normally immaculately-dressed Pepper Potts in old casual clothes to meet in a small coffee shop, “No. Tony’s basically locked himself down in his workshop, and JARVIS has been giving me updates on how much he eats and sleeps because we’re lucky if he gets four hours and two meals. Obediah has taken over all CEO meetings, and just yesterday pushed to consider Tony unfit to be CEO. Tony has until the next shareholder meeting tomorrow to make an appearance and reassure them, but Tony isn’t showing the slightest inclination in doing so.”.

Steve winced, not surprised, but he’d hoped that Tony would try and reach out after the trauma, even if he’d known it was an empty hope, and the news about Stane wasn’t good, “Well, fuck. Anything you can do to stall the meeting for a day? If you give me _carte blanche_ permission, I can get Tony there. And beat that unfit charge.”.

Pepper eyed him, her eyes sharp, “Steve, do I want to know what you’re going to do?”.

He waved his hand in an ‘eh’ motion, “Doing. No, plausible deniability for you.”, and her lips thinned, not pleased. Her voice took on a warning tone, “Steve,”.

He winced even as he listened to the earpiece keeping him abreast of how Scott had found Stane did have a server, but it was hidden behind a safe door in his office, “Stay away from Stane, Pepper, he’s bad news.”.

The woman watched him for a long moment, voice soft but no less serious, “Steve,”, taking on a tone Steve knew well: from Peggy. It was the voice she’d take every time he had an outlandish plan that he would outline then conveniently forget to tell a couple of details that typically meant he’d take on the lion’s share of enemies and/or danger without backup. Then she would stare him down until he admitted to taking more than his fair share of risks before acting as his back-up until Bucky would come charging in – sneaking through shadows like a ghost more like – and rescue them.

He missed Peggy even as he barely kept from fidgeting, watching as Pepper leaned back, crossing her legs primly and taking a sip of her coffee, just looking at him, waiting.

He missed Peggy like a lost limb, wishing again that Becca had found her yet, because he was sure that she would have been in for this little off-the-books operation in a heartbeat. He wondered if anyone else had found out that Peggy’d had a rebellious independent streak just as wide as his, and that was why she’d gotten as far as she had so young in a world she was looked down on. He wondered again how many more messes she’d intervened in because she’d wanted to make the world a better place just as much as she had, even if she had been less blunt about it.

Steve focused on how Dave reported back that Stane had a lot of memos about the creation of a metal suit with lots of weapons.

His eyes narrowed until he was all but glaring at his own black coffee, fiddling with a sugar packet, “I mean it Pepper, the man’s dangerous. Power hungry. I’ve known men like him – they’ll do anything, say anything, act any part, to get the trust of those with power before they rip it away for themselves. I went to war with men like him.”, thinking of Hydra, of Senator Pierce, of a million bullies.

She was quiet, seeing how tightly coiled Steve was, how angry he was at the world for men like that, and let go of needing to know what he was doing. Whatever he was doing, she trusted him enough to know that he was doing it to help, “Steve, if you need anything. _Anything_ , just ask.”.

Even if she wished that he could let go of the phantoms of war that haunted him enough to see that he wasn’t alone in this, but she understood that he’d spent a lifetime fighting for what he believed in – she’d seen the arrest record he’d gotten for sit-ins and protest rallies, had to bail him out a time or two as well.

When he looked her in the eye, his blue eyes flecked with gold, she nodded her understanding, telling him without words that she would heed his warning and be wary of Stane.

After all, the man had never quite set right with her, even if she’d never managed to put a name to it until Tony’d come back from Afghanistan a changed man. Steve was just naming what she’d realized.

They were both quiet as they drank their coffee; Pepper thinking over how she could track any suspicious company actions made by Stane through JARVIS, and Steve listening to the updates by Scott that he’d managed to crack the safe door, and had accessed the server, downloading the whole thing, which Kurt was making scanning copies of the memos they’d found.

Pepper broke the quiet, “You look better, Steve, not quite as on edge.”.

Steve took a drink of his empty coffee to hide his grimace, “It’s been a long time since I’ve been kept on the sidelines, and not front and center in the action. It’s relaxing without all the stress of endless responsibilities of other people’s lives, but I’ve spent my whole life fighting to even get right in the thick of things. It feels wrong to not be there.”.

He carefully set his cup down, “Becca wants me to take a break, so I can prepare for getting back right in the whole mess.”. Steve was careful to not say _what_ mess, even as he thought of how Becca’s people chased rumors and shadows.

He almost wanted to say that the Ten Rings would never bother Tony again, as Becca had the Bratva on a manhunt, and in her words, ‘damn well doing what my brother would fucking be doing towards the bastards who’d hurt you’. He wouldn’t though because things were different now, and having connections to groups like the Bratva was not considered a boon but something to be ashamed of.

Virginia would probably sigh, her face twisting into a ‘why-Steve-why’, before asking if he wanted more sugar for his coffee.

He missed the girls, particularly Ely right now. He could just imagine the Becca and Ely calmly, casually, discussing what their respective _families_ could do to disrespectful bastards, and thought Becca could use another strong matriarch as a friend.

He thought Becca sometimes didn’t know how to treat him – as a friend, as somebody who’d been like a big brother, or as a child because she’d lived a lifetime more than he had.

Pepper did it sometimes too, hesitating as if unsure on how to talk to him – if she should do so as a friend, a boss, or like a big sister as she had several years on him (not counting the years he’d spent in the ice).

Right now, she wanted to comfort him, but wasn’t sure where her boundary was in this instance, “Take however long you need,”, trying to smile, “Because you know when you get back in the saddle, Tony’s not going to let you go.”.

He smiled back, unable to help but think that Bucky was going to have his work cut out for him in recruiting new members to his ‘Steve-needs-lots-of-attention-and-care’ club, what with Pepper offering her support, however, he would take it, and Tony having gotten a hold of his number and spamming him with various ‘memes’ as Becca called them – he personally enjoyed the clumsy cat videos, they reminded him of Bucky when he finally managed to startle him from where he’d been looming – at all hours of the day and night.

In response, he’d started to send Tony random videos of Clint’s clumsiness, of Pizza Dog’s antics, and of various things throughout New York City that he thought the other man would find amusing or interesting.

Steve heard Dave say that they were scramming before someone noticed that he’d been loitering on the street in front of Stane’s house, and Scott say that he was done and head out, letting his voice drip with sarcasm, “Can’t wait.”.

Pepper laughed, smile more natural and eyes brighter now that some of the weight she’d been carrying with her worries about Stane, was less now that they’d been shared.

She stood, Steve standing as well, before leaning over and hugging him, “We miss you, Steve.”, well aware of how he stiffened for just a heartbeat before becoming a big puddle of relaxed goo, pleased at grabbing the opportunity to show Steve that he mattered to them.

~

Steve reclined back on Clint’s couch, feet in the air, quickly reading through the uploaded documents from Stane’s server on the tablet, hand clenching and unfortunately causing spider-web cracks to spread up the screen as he got angrier and angrier.

He was forced to put it aside when it made an ominous cracking noise, and crunched beneath his fingers, screen flickering a multitude of colors before dying. His blood was roaring in his ears as he’d found evidence of decades worth of illegal arms deals, of market manipulation, of shady dealings, and suspicious deaths, among them Evie.

He was beyond angry to read that the heart attack he’d been told by Becca had been why she’d died a handful of years after Howard, was in fact a manipulated overdose of heart medication because Evie had continued to refuse to make weapons and he couldn’t fire her without Tony’s approval, which he had believed would never happen.

Beyond angry that Dum-Dum, had died like Evie had, because he’d been looking into Howard’s death and apparently gotten too close.

He wanted the man’s head on a pike, and was a second away from doing so regardless of consequences, if he hadn’t found evidence of Stane arranging that fateful trip to the Kunar providence, and of his supplying Stark weapons to the Ten Rings.

If there was evidence of his meeting with that other man planning Tony’s death and discussing Howard’s as murder, it was elsewhere.

Steve did have the original hostage tape, not the edited one that had ended up on the internet, and the translation was definite in that Stane was clearly implicated, which would have to be enough for now.

He twisted, planting his feet on the ground before springing up and starting to pace. He wanted to go for a wrong, to get rid of some of the aggression and rage making him itch for a fight, but he had plans; Virginia was on her way.

The thought of her visiting him and him being gone, chasing monsters, drowned him in anxiety.

Not helped by the fact that he’d already made their meal, simple fare because he didn’t trust himself to attempt something more complicated with the anger crawling under his skin, yet just complicated enough that he couldn’t give into the anger or risk burning the food, but he could see this meeting going one of two ways: either she would prove that Potts women were unflappable, and accept his ‘I’ve been in coma, more or less, for the last seventy years in the ice’, or would refuse to accept that she was the Steve she’d once known.

He all but knew that the first option was far more likely, as she had sounded completely calm and unpanicked on the phone when he’d called, but the anxiety that whispered in his ear, particularly without Bucky there to drown part of it out beneath his ‘ **_You are fucking amazing Steve, don’t you fucking dare let anyone else fucking tell you otherwise_ ** ’, believed and doubted that Virginia would believe him.

Steve found himself tugging lightly on his bullet earrings, even as he hunched in on himself, all but curling up with his head hiding behind his knees in front of the couch, as he tried to remember all the times that Bucky had thought he was worth something.

It had been years (decades) since he’d had to be Steve Rogers, and not play a part, hiding behind a mask of someone else that looked like him, and anxiety swamped him. With Virginia, he could be as close as he could be to himself without anger propping himself up, because she knew _him._ It was different than it was with Becca, because they could be vulnerable in ways they could be with no one else alive (or present in Bucky’s case) with each other, but since he had told her that he believed Bucky alive, they had been more than angry, had been enraged.

It was hard to be anxious when rage burned away any doubt.

He couldn’t exist in a perpetual state with Virginia, she didn’t deserve that.

Neither did Bucky, and once he had him back, Steve wanted to try his best to not be so angry.

It had been his anger that had lost him Bucky in the first place, because if he hadn’t been so determined to fight Hydra, then maybe Bucky would have taken his honorable discharge, and never been on that damn train. If he hadn’t been so angry towards Zola, and let others capture the man that had tortured Bucky, maybe Bucky wouldn’t have been on that damn train, following after him. If he hadn’t been so enraged by those Hydra men stopping him from getting to Zola, maybe he wouldn’t have been knocked aside and Bucky wouldn’t have had to take up his shield, and knocked out of the train for it.

Peggy had tried so hard to convince him that Bucky’s Fall hadn’t been his fault, but he knew the truth: it had. He had known wherever he would go, Bucky would follow on his right, and he’d known that they risked death with each breathe they went after Hydra.

Death had never scared him, but he thought that he should have been more cautious because he’d been risking _Bucky’s_ death with his recklessness.

He thought that he _should_ be anxious; Steve Rogers had made very few good decisions, had made foolish plans, even if Bucky had always said that his heart had been in the right place, and his intentions had never been anything but good, even if his methods hadn’t always been so.

The road to hell was paved with good intentions though.

Clint found him all but hyperventilating on the floor, in the midst of an anxiety-induced panic attack, “Little dude!”.

For once he didn't trip over anything, even he stumbled in his rush to kneel in front of him, pushing his head between his knees and pulling him back against his chest so he could feel his heartbeat through his back.

Steve ground his fists against his eyes as his breaths slowly started to even, heart slowing to something closer to what Clint’s was, trying desperately to not cry because this was what Bucky had always done when his anxiety had gotten to be too much. His body knew this routine so well that it didn’t matter that his mind was keening _BUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKYYYYYYYY_ , that his breaths evened and his heartbeat calmed, nearly matching Clint’s.

Even so, it took him what felt like an eternity to realize that Clint was humming off-key a familiar tune.

Vic Meyer’s 1928 _Nobody’s Sweetheart_.

It had been a favorite of Dum-Dum’s dame, and he remembered that it had gotten stuck in his head so much that Bucky had found him a record to play at Ms. Clare’s.

When the panic attack had passed fully, Clint spoke, “I used to get panic attacks, when I got stuck in my head and worried what my father would do next when he drank. My brother Barney used to hum that, as our mother used to sing that on good days because it was a favorite of her older sister.”.

Steve was quiet, almost boneless with how good it felt to be near somebody again, to take and give comfort, “My mother liked it so much because it fit her sister well, because she would be no man’s ‘little woman’, even if her husband would be almost twice her size. He found her strength charming. Fitting, because he was a strongman.”.

Steve wondered what the chances were – Vivi’s nephew stood in front of him.

He seemed to just attract those just like those he’d known decades ago.

A glance at the clock reminded him of the time and how little was left before Virginia would be there, and he jumped up, scrambling to finish getting things ready.

Steve paused in the doorway to the kitchen, glancing back but unable to meet Clint’s eyes even when the other man was sprawled back against the front of his couch on the floor, tugging on one earring, “Thanks, I can do the rest of this on my own.”.

Clint gave a lopsided smile, scratching at the back of his head awkwardly, “Just know that you don’t have to.”, missing how Steve paled at how a second person echoed Bucky because Pizza Dog, sensing weakness, clambered atop Clint and licked his face, “Aw, Pizza D-“, licking into his mouth.

Steve left Clint to his dog’s mercies for a moment, before he pulled his mother’s stew off the stove, then pulled out a small chunk of cheese, “Lucky, cheese.”.

The dog came running, sliding across the floor in his rush, slamming into the lower cabinets before sitting right in front of him, tail wagging a million miles an hour as his tongue hung out of his mouth.

Clint slumped down onto his stomach, reaching dramatically just within sight through the door frame, “Aww, Steve, his farts are noxious when you give him cheese.”.

Steve raised an eyebrow pointedly, tossing the dog the cheese who took it to chew on in the corner, “Well, perhaps you shouldn’t have fed him pizza. He doesn’t respond to regular dog treats, barely eats dog food – usually eats your leftovers actually – and chunks of cheese are one of the few things that will get his attention without fail.”.

Clint pouted as Steve left his stew simmer before going towards his room to change, leaving Clint in his living room as Pizza Dog came over, laid himself over the man’s back, and farted, “AW, PIZZA DOG!”.

It made him laugh even as he quickly got further away, because damn, that dog’s farts were awful.

He was still laughing as pulled on that nice long blue skirt he’d found in the ‘vintage’ clothes’ shop over his stockings, replacing his pants and apron, then pulled on a cream blouse, not unlike one he’d seen Peggy wear once.

Normally, he wouldn’t dress up like this, but Becca had given him a letter not long after they were reunited that she’d been holding on from Danny for near-on twenty-five years. Danny had told him about the sexual revolution of the sixties, and the free love movement, and the LBQT community that had come about by the eighties. She had told him that what they were wasn’t something to be ashamed of, but to be proud of, and that they had been given names.

From her, he had known to look for those names – that they’d been, were, gender fluid, were demisexual.

Though Danny had straight-up called him in her letter, primarily ‘Bucky-sexual’, ‘considering how you had eyes only for your fella, even if Peggy could have been’.

He owed it to Virginia, one of the few people who had ever known about the game, his need and his want, in dressing up in women’s things, to not lie to her about who she was.

He would do it because this was who he was, and it wasn’t illegal, and he had nothing to hide.

He came out of his room to see Clint sitting on his couch, Pizza Dog laying on his feet, a collection of beauty tools next to him, “Come on, let’s pretty you up for that friend of yours. She’ll be here in twenty minutes, right?”.

Steve found himself smiling gratefully at Clint, before sitting next to him, letting him add the hair extensions Becca had found for him, done up in Peggy’s style. Then the soft rose lipstick and a light application of purple eyeshadow with thick eyeliner and a little mascara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, update.  
> Maybe three more chapters left in Stark Reality?  
> Four is more likely though because this chapter only achieved a little over half of what I'd had planned.  
> Also, no idea why – but ONLY this story wants to copy and paste in a whole, single block. Frustrating as all get out. Makes me hate trying to post this story. I DO NOT like having to copy and paste ten pages worth paragraph by paragraph.  
> Thank you Google Docs for cooperating and not making me do so!


	7. To Crown the Happenings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pinnacle of previous events.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, a day early! I thought I would get this up tomorrow, by the way.
> 
> For those of you not Shinigami24, whom I've expressly mentioned this to, only about three chapters left after this one in Stark Reality! (Barring any extra-long chapters, or extra-long scenes of what I have planned.)

Steve froze a little when he heard footsteps approaching, making Clint trail off in his explanation of the modern punk style.

He nervously brushed his pinned bangs aside as he straightened, fixing his skirt and blouse, before looking at Clint with a bit of a panic making his eyes wide, “Does my make-up look good??”.

Clint smiled, holding up two thumbs-up, “Very good.”, then started gathering up his supplies and taking them away with a little wave, “I’m sure you’ll impress this lady, Steve.”, heading back up to his part of this building.

Steve tried to take confidence from Clint’s smile, but he wanted to look his best to meet Virginia for the first time, and he couldn’t help but hear whispers of how he was a freak and a fairy to be wearing women’s things when he wasn’t one.

It made his confidence waver before he straightened, chin lifting as he remembered Bucky.

Bucky who had surely known who Steph was even if they’d never discussed it, who had grasped her by her cheeks, rested his forehead against hers, looked at her with appreciation, and said that she’d looked  _ beautiful, sweetheart, you look stunning _ .

Anyone else might have lied, Bucky might have lied to anyone else, but he would not outright lie to him. He certainly could mislead – the reason for fireworks on his birthday was a rather major example – and his usual tactic was just not saying anything – he certainly kept to that regarding his ties to the Bratva – but Bucky wouldn’t lie outright  _ to him _ .

They’d both become rather good at saying things without actually saying anything, without saying what they meant, and both were very capable of keeping vague enough that assumptions were made about what they meant, but outright  _ lie _ , no.

Bucky had said he’d looked beautiful as Steph, so he’d meant it.

He’d believe it as he had then in the moment, because he trusted Bucky to never lie to him.

So he moved to the door as there was a little, polite knock, “Coming,”, and opened it to see an aged Virginia Potts, “Virginia,”.

The older woman’s eyes widened slightly, and tears came to them, before she smiled happily and stepped forward, wrapping her thin arms around him strongly, “Steve!”.

She held him for a long moment, pulling his head into her shoulder, “Steve, how . . They said you were dead!”, her cautious hope that she’d been clinging to since she’d heard his voice on the phone blossoming fully with the knowledge that it was vindicated, that he was  _ alive _ .

He hesitantly wrapped his arms around her, afraid to break her even as he melted into her grip, the ache he’d been carrying since he’d woken up fading nearly completely when it had before only been eased by Clint’s casual touches, “I’ll explain inside. There was a lot I didn’t want to say on the phone, if you had even believed it was me.”.

She let him go for a moment, but didn’t let him get far before they settled on the couch, skirted knees touching as Virginia didn’t want him to go far less she realize this was a warped memory, a symptom of the dementia her paranoid son was sure she would show signs of any day now, “Please explain how you stand in front of me, looking barely a day older than when I last saw you in 1942.”.

Steve grasped her hand, “Not long after I met you, I tried to join the war again, only this time my determination to join despite all the disadvantages society would have me staying on the home-front for impressed a scientist. He’d been looking for a good first subject for his super-soldier serum, and he choose me. He made me into the Captain America the world knew, but died just after I had been ‘re-born’, so I was the only one, and the true limits of what it could do was more than unknown. Peggy spent most of the war documenting what we found out about it actually, and editing out what she could from the records so that they didn’t make me government property to try and reverse-engineer the serum after the war.”, staring down at her frail little hand, at how he could every little vein beneath her skin, “Unfortunately, no one expected the seemingly  _ lack _ of limits the serum gave me. It meant that when I went into the ice with the  _ Valkyrie _ , I didn’t die. It was described to me as being essentially suspended animation. I was merely frozen, literally and figuratively, in time.”.

Her other hand flew up to her face, covering her mouth when she gasped, the tears falling, voice a shallow broken thing, “Oh my God . . Steve!”.

She could feel how his hand was shaking, and see how one hand went unconsciously up to rub at his arm  _ like he was cold _ , and felt only horror at the knowledge  _ he’d been alive all these years waiting for someone to find him _ . She was smart enough to catch what was unspoken –  _ that he’d been aware all those years _ – and leaned forward, pulling him back into a tight hug because he needed  _ all _ the love after an experience like that.

She clung to him, wanting to express very thoroughly that he wasn’t alone, wanted him to know he had people who cared, squeezing him as close as she could, because she remembered when Pepper had come crying to her for comfort after the hostage tape of Tony Stark and her assistant Steve Barnes had been released roughly four months ago. She’d thought then that Steve Barnes had looked  _ eerily _ like the Steve Rogers she’d known, but had thought that he may have been just a doppleganger, may have been him at his next life, and tried to put it out of her mind how Steve appeared almost  _ destined _ to suffer. To hear it had been  _ him _ , she cried, because  _ it wasn’t fair _ .

Virginia cried because Steve had woken up in this new world, so very different from the one he’d known without a single friendly familiar face beside him, and must have felt so  _ alone _ . She’d known why he’d gone into the ice – was familiar enough with his intelligence to know that if he’d truly wanted to, he could have found a way to land the  _ Valkyrie _ elsewhere – and known that he’d been overcome with grief. She’d accepted it, but had cried because it was heart-breaking to hear somebody who wouldn’t stay down when beaten over and over had all but  _ given up _ and had gone (nearly) quietly into the night instead of with the bang she’d known he’d deserved. She cried now because she suspected that he’d  _ stayed _ in the ice willfully, not wanting to live in a world Bucky no longer was in, and thinking that  _ everyone  _ he’d known and cared for could be dead and not wanted to face it.

She wished that she had pushed Howard harder instead of only going through the motions when he’d told her while completely drunk that he wanted to show Steve the world he’d helped build, acting like it had been possible Steve could have been alive and not delusional with grief. Evie had only been helping because she wanted to bring Steve’s body home, and had thought they at least owed him that, but she knew that if Evie had even suspected Steve could have been alive, there would have been nothing stopping them. She wished that she’d given Evie even a little of foolhardy-appearing hope that Steve might have been still alive, because Evie would have created something in a moment to find a heartbeat. She wished because then maybe Steve could have woken to  _ all _ his friends, and they could have helped him with his grief, convinced him to  _ live _ again.

Steve hugged her back because he hated how distressed she was, and he hoped to soothe it, “Viriginia, it doesn’t matter. No one knew. No one could have known.”.

Virginia wanted to shake the man because it  _ did _ matter, but she doubted she could get it through his head. Evie’s sister Becca stood perhaps the best chance – being so much like her brother Bucky – but from the stories she’d heard from Evie, even Bucky had never managed to completely convince Steve of his worth.

Evie had cried as she said that Steve  _ could never _ believe that anyone else’s life was worth more than his, and Bucky had spent his whole life trying to keep Steve from giving his for someone else. She had cried because Bucky had surely given his for Steve, and she knew that would have broken Steve beyond repair, because Bucky’s life had  _ always _ meant more to Steve’s than anyone else’s.

When she had no more tears to give, Virginia just clutched at Steve’s blouse, “Steve, I hope you know if we’d have even a sliver of hope you lived, we would have found you. You would have never woken alone.”.

Her words nearly made tears come to his eyes, because if he’d had know he’d had people who’d wanted to be there for him, that he  _ had _ awoken alone, had made him doubt. To hear exactly what he’d wanted to know, that he’d been cared for enough to be  _ missed so much to drive someone to tears _ – and not just a Barnes, who were family in everything but blood – soothed that scared monster beneath his skin.

It hit then, in a way it hadn’t even when he’d seen Becca, that he’d  _ chose _ to leave them all behind in his grief, had  _ left people behind _ . It was too ingrained in his make-up to take all the risks so others didn’t have to, take them so that everyone else could return home to their lives, but he had always tried to make it back himself before. The  _ Valkyrie _ had been the only time he’d just stood by and let death come to him.

He was torn between the hope that someone informed Bucky, because Bucky would  _ very much definitely _ tear his way free  _ just _ to tear him a new one for having  _ given up _ , and the hope that Bucky  _ never _ found out, because it would make him very sad, to know Steve had  _ given up _ , had  _ stopped fighting _ .

He winced even as guilt swamped him, because he’d realized that Bucky would be  _ pissed _ that he’d tried to invalidate  _ his _ sacrifice, and though he couldn’t remember the last time Bucky had been  _ truly  _ pissed  _ at him _ , he just knew it was  _ not _ going to be pleasant  _ in any sense of the word _ .

Guilt made his voice choke, and there was a heavy weight around his neck about how he hadn’t even thought of all the people who’d  _ genuinely _ cared about him, who would have  _ truly _ missed  _ him _ . Logically, he knew that his grief had driven every thought but joining Bucky and taking Hydra out from his head, but his emotions were a mess.

He wanted to start laughing because Bucky had always hated when Steve was hit with the urge to give into what he called his Catholic Guilt _ , _ but considering it would have sounded somewhere in the neighborhood of broken and hysterical, he swallowed it.

It didn’t mean the urge to flagellate himself at the knowledge that he’d abandoned family disappeared, it just meant he had to bottle it up for now.

He could hold onto it until Bucky was around, because if Bucky found out he hadn’t used Bucky-approved methods to rid himself of that Guilt, it would  _ not at all _ end well for him. He would look for ones that Bucky had approved of from during the war, but the Guilt was too fresh, he  _ wanted _ to suffer under it for a time for it.

Virginia interrupted his thoughts of Guilt with one last squeeze before letting go, then reaching into the bag he’d noted she’d brought in but hadn’t thought anything of.

Fresh tears came to his eyes when she pulled a nice 40’s-style dress that had been recently lengthened, admiring how the broader shoulders were offset by the loose flow of the dress and yet girlishly emphasized with the tight-appearing cinch around his waist that allowed for a greater illusion of a chest. She held it out for him to look at closer, and he had no words for her when he felt the soft, smooth texture that laid cool against his skin, just hugged it closer with a thankful smile.

Virginia smiled a little watery herself, “I was working on this for you, so you could wear it for your fella when he came home, when news reached us that you were Captain America. I put it aside as the war went on in earnest. After your call, I finished it.”.

Steve carefully folded it up, trying to imagine himself in this dress with Bucky standing in front of him, when Virginia spoke again, her voice stronger even if it as laced with aged sadness, “Evie was inspired by you, did you know that?”.

She fiddled with a bracelet around her thin wrist made of bolts, screws, wire, tied to electrical cord, “I met her when she moved into my henhouse, following in your and Becca’s footsteps to help with the war effort. Bold as brass she was, wheeling herself around on the contraption she’d made, with a lap full of tools and half-finished gadgets. She actually managed to get herself a job at the local factory where I was a supervisor.”, smiling as she thought of her dead friend, “It must be a Barnes trait, because she was basically ruling that factory in a week, and from what I understand, Becca walked into the Bratva and did similar in a manner of months, as well as Ana – it was actually part of the reason she was promoted out to the Army I was told.”.

Steve laughed, “Yeah, their mother was a strong woman – and all four of her children inherited her spine of steel. Then they got the Barnes spunk – so, bold as brass. Ana and Evie weren’t as in your face about it as the other two, but yeah.”.

Virginia chuckled, fully able to believe that, “You should have seen her at the end of the war, when the men came back to the factory. They tried to fire her, and she caused a hell of a scene, making them drag her and her wheelchair out while clutching as many of her engineering plans to her chest and yelling to high heaven about their stupidity and lack of vision. Howard Stark happened to be touring his factories, wanting to see who had been manning them during the war, and happened to witness the scene before one of her plans blew into his face.”.

She laughed, “The look on his face as he looked at that plan! It must have been like looking at one of his own plans, because he offered her a job with Stark Industries on the spot.”, a soft smile on her face, remembering how Evie had not just broken the glass ceiling there, but  _ shattered  _ it, becoming Howard’s second even if Obediah Stane had been his vice president, “And she brought me along with her on that ride, demanding to have me assisting her. My job title was officially ‘assistant’, but I was her handler! That woman – and Howard for that matter most days – forget to eat most days without a minder.”.

Steve’s face fell at the reminder of Stane, voice quiet, still angry at what he had found out, but mostly sad now at the knowledge that the bright light that had been Evie had been snuffed out before it shine brightest, “I found evidence recently that Evie’s death was under,”, biting out, “ _ suspicious circumstances. _ ”.

Virginia’s face fell at that, looking less like the sixty-something woman she appeared as when happy, and more her age of nearly ninety, “Before Evie died, she had said that she thought there was a traitor at Stark Industries, that a remnant of Hydra had been dictating the project Howard had been working on when he’d died .”.

~

Steve had arranged a meeting with the crew of thieves the morning after his dinner with Virginia, waiting in the apartment Kurt had first brought him to before they would get there, casually flicking his switch-blade open and closed while he reviewed everything they had gotten in the heist again.

If the screen of the tablet developed a few spiderweb cracks around his grip, no one had to see that as he sorted out the information into two groups, with a little extra being added, as long as the electronic still worked.

He was angry at what Virginia had told him, even if it only confirmed a few suspicions he’d had about the mystery co-conspirator.

The four men entered the apartment not long after, but as he about finished sorting the information out, he turned gold eyes out the window, “Good job yesterday, I just have one last thing I need you to do. Nothing unpleasant, I promise.”, sending one set of information to their devices with an encryption to protect the sender’s anonymity, “Release the information I just sent to your phones, to first the authorities so they can get started on doing something with it. Give them an hour, then release it online.”.

Steve turned cold, angry gold-tinted blue eyes to them, “He killed Evie. Let the public judge him, if the law won’t.”.

He stood, flicking his switch-blade closed, “The promised five thousand will be in your accounts, to be delivered as payment by ‘Howling Studios’, two hundred fifty per week.”, heading to leave, but paused for a moment in the doorframe, “If you ever had a job that needed, or even just want, another pair of hands for your more usual fare, I’m game for it.”.

~

Steve used his special ID to get into Stark Industries, going to Tony’s lab, with J.A.R.V.I.S. announcing his arrival, “Sir, Mister Barnes is here to see you,”.

Tony’s head popped out from behind something, and he smiled with large bags beneath his eyes, “Steve!”, before moving out from behind his workbench.

Steve smiled back, pleased to see that he looked better than he had when he’d last been at Stark Industries after their kidnapping, “Tony, good to see you.”.

He came back now, as this morning just prior to his meeting with Scott’s Merry Band of Thieves, Pepper had all but demanded to know what he’d been planning at their last meeting, with Tony having had just asked her the night before to hack Stane’s files of the locations of the weapons he’d sold illegally.

He’d went to work at Stark Industries for one reason, and when it had become better to work outside it, he’d been holding back coming back so that his actions wouldn’t be taken as being the responsibility of Pepper or Tony.

Tony looked at Steve, wearing his bullet earrings, and his dog tags, and cross with the plastic blue ring on the chain in front of his shirt, the clink of coins against bottle caps audible in the quiet without socks to muffle the noise, and frowned as he tried to catch a glimpse of the name on the dog tags, not quite able to read it, “It’s good to see you too. Not that I’m not ecstatic to see you here again, but  _ why _ are you here?”.

Steve smiled a little sadly to see that Tony assumed – even it was rightly in this case – that he wouldn’t have come back without a purpose, “Pepper told me that you wanted to hack Stane’s files for the locations of the weapons he illegally sold.”.

Before Tony could give Pepper a Look, he continued, “As she knew that I’d been up to something of a similar goal. No need to beat a dog dead twice when it’s not necessary.”, pulling out a crimson thumb-drive and holding it out, “Particularly since I knew the man was bad news. I’d already arranged a little theft to get at his files, and I had gotten Pepper out of the office so she couldn’t be implicated in my dabbling in corporate espionage if my whistle-blowing got charges written up.”.

Steve didn’t hold it out to him, “I have all the information you could want on this drive, and I’ll give it to you. First however, we need to be somewhere in the next twenty minutes.”, giving a bit of a sharp grin, “We have a shareholder’s meeting to be at so Stane doesn’t get Stark Industries regardless of douchebaggery.”.

He was already dressed in a nice dark blue pantsuit, so he’d brought Tony’s clothes: his tailored black suit; crisp, freshly-ironed button-up; bold dark red with thin gold stripes tie; and his black dress shoes.

Tony took the clothes, and started stripping, the other two looking unfazed at it – Steve because he’d spent a lifetime with Bucky doing existentially the same, and Pepper had ten years of Tony doing this – even if they glanced to the sides so Tony didn’t throw them a flirty grin and a sexual innuendo ‘about liking the show’.

When Tony had changed, and did a quick wipe-off so he looked like he  _ hadn’t _ just come from his lab, Steve lead the way to the elevator to take them to the upper levels where the meeting was being held. He handed Pepper the thumb-drive, before addressing Tony, “Let me lead this, and all you’ll have to do is show up and Stane is taken care of.”.

Tony looked at Steve, met his blue eyes solidly, and decided to give Steve a little trust because he’d gone above and beyond so far and had never worked in anything but their best interests, “Be my guest, I’ll gladly let you deal with the harpies that have wanted me gone since I took over.”.

They arrived on the right floor as Steve just grinned with all his teeth for a moment, addressing JARVIS as he entered the meeting room with a glare right on Stane, “J.A.R.V.I.S., if you would kindly bring up recent news up on the screens? I saw something  _ interesting _ this morning regarding our VP.”.

There was nothing kind about Steve’s face as he prowled across the room, “It would be no problem, Mister Barnes,”, something in JARVIS’ tone that hinted at anger all of its own, before story after story from all types of newspapers popped on screen after screen, more popping up each moment as phones buzzed with notifications of news stories.

Tony found himself staring at Steve, just staring as his eyes caught snippets of headlines, ‘EVIDENCE OF VP A WEAPON-DEALER?’ ‘MURDEROUS VP’ ‘DECADES OF ILLEGAL DEALS’.

Stane turned red, sneering, “You fucking bastard-!”, before he made to back-hand Steve.

Steve let it connect, not moving an inch, before he caught Stane’s wrist, moved, twisting the man’s arm behind his back and kicking the back of his knees, then using one hand to make his forehead touch the ground as he pressed him down into the floor. The baying of the Grim was loud in his ears, and Stane lost color as he could almost see the snarling Great Dog directly in front of them, hot death-scented breath going directly in his face, “You have spent three decades betraying people and creating conflicts across the world. The whole world knows now that you murdered Corporal Timothy Dugan, murdered Evaline Barnes, tried to have Anthony Stark killed. There’s also enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that Howard and Maria Stark’s car accident, was no accident, as you’ve had other people killed that kept you from controlling what this company made and Howard Stark had suspended you that week he was killed for a disturbing lack of ethics.”.

He leaned forward, gold tinting his eyes as a dog’s growl roughened his voice, “There’s a special place for monsters like you. It’s called the belly of the Great Dog. Though you may know the Eater of Evil by his more common name, the Grim .”.

Stane stayed on the ground, paralyzed by fear while Steve moved away, before security arrived to remove him from the room.

Steve walked to the shareholders gathered, looking pale as they read some of the articles on the screens and on their phones, pleased with himself as he’d completely destroyed Stane’s credibility and made them feel guilty for believing such a charming monster had their best interests in heart, “I hope you rethink your decision to remove Tony from the CEO position of the company. However, in face of your accusations, Tony wishes to take a break from the company as it has come to his attention that he is not as recovered from his  _ ordeal _ as he thought he was if you believed Stane. So in his stead, he is leaving the competent Pepper Potts in charge until further notice, with the understanding that if all parties are happy with her at the helm, she is to be the new CEO of Stark Industries. Leaving Tony to be primarily just an engineer under the direct purview of Pepper, with the occasional appearance on behalf of his father’s company.”.

He gave Tony a Look that pleaded and ordered him to cooperate for at least the time being so they appeared an united front.

Tony didn’t see it as he was already agreeing, looking almost relieved as that was what he preferred actually – he knew he was not the best CEO, and Pepper had been doing the lion’s share of the work almost since she’d started anyway, so he thought it only right that she be recognized as such while he was left to what he was better at.

Steve smiled as Pepper quickly recovered from the surprise of being named acting-CEO, and stepped beside Tony, presenting an unified front about where the company would go from here, with Tony backing her up completely on everything she said.

He left with the knowledge they would soon know not just the details of every deal Stane had made, with his notes on where he believed the weapons currently were, but the memos about Stane’s attempts to recreate Tony’s iron suit.

A mean smirk curled his lips and his eyes were gold as he left, as he got a text from Becca that she’d seen to it  _ personally _ to hit Stane’s secret workshop and destroy that attempted suit completely, then wiped any records of their research so Tony was once again the only person with the knowledge of how to make that suit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter should be up by next weekend, earlier depending on how I'm feeling.  
> I'm going in to get my gallbladder removed (hopefully?) Tuesday, so either I'm going to get nothing done, or a lot done with a week off work and laying about. The rest of Part Two IS outlined pretty detailed, so either way, I should, tentatively, be done with this part of TtEotL by early September at the latest. Definately before PSU starts term again for sure.


	8. To Meet (Again)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is technically a little over half of what I'd had planned for this chapter, but it ended on such a nice note for me that I felt good about where it was at.
> 
> I am back in the groove!

After having many times watched Clint climb to any perch in their home, Steve had picked up a few of his moves – with one in particular being from atop the bookshelf with an eclectic mix of Russian nursery rhymes and fairy tales, ballet scripts, babushka dolls, and archery techniques, famous archers, the tales of Robin Hood, as well as books on birds.

He had found it a bit amusing to just casually be perched there as he browsed through the catalogue of hair styles and colors, and watch Clint’s face twitch in exasperation. Most of his amusement came from how Clint  _ knew _ he was in the room, but still was at least marginally surprised to find him up  _ there _ .

This time, he wasn’t looking through the hair catalogue, but instead Scott’s request of assistance in a job – on VistaCorps. Becca had thought it fit Scott’s Merry Band of Thieves well, considering Scott was taking this personally – as they were scheming employees out of their retirement money and falsifying it – because his wife’s parents were among the victims.

Steve had already decided to assist the moment Scott had requested his help, but he was looking through the details closely because it  _ was _ personal for Scott. They wouldn’t have the assurance that when this went public, that VistaCorps wouldn’t press charges – because they  _ would _ – and thus, this needed to be planned very carefully.

He already had half a mind of playing distraction – by loudly accusing VistaCorps of their crimes in their lobby while Scott transferred funds – as par his preferred M.O. of the equivalent of going through the front door.

A small smile twisted his lips as he imagined how  _ pissed _ Bucky would be that he wanted the role with the most risk if things went sideways –  **_You fucking punk-!_ **

He mentally cut Bucky off when he felt his phone go off in his pocket with a message from Becca.

~

Steve found himself nervously toying with his bangs as he walked onto Culver University campus.

Becca had been looking for the seven showgirls he’d been friends with for months now, and while they were easier to track down than the still elusive surviving Howling Commandoes, she’d not been having much luck.

Becca had tracked May down to being in New York City, and was working on narrowing down an address and phone number.

Grace had been in contact with Evie until her death, with a wild range of postmarks and postcards. Becca had lost her somewhere in Europe. Best Steve could make out was that she was hopping from science institution to science institution, playing with their fancy toys and giving the occasional lecture, but there was no pattern to her appearances. Last Becca had found was Grace in Oslo, Norway, and she was working on getting someone to get Grace to answer a phone before disappearing elsewhere.

Ely was in Chicago somewhere, though Becca wasn’t having any luck just finding a phone number – not that they had expected to. Ely was  _ family _ , just like Becca was, so she was trying through those channels, but was hitting a bit of a brick wall with overprotective nieces and nephews that seemed to think Becca was trying to  _ start _ something.

Cathy had passed some ten years before, peacefully in her sleep at ninety-two. Becca had found her gravestone in Richmond, Virginia, near both of her favorite uncles, the one having been a Union soldier and the other a Confederate that she’d just  _ adored _ .

Danny and Kimberly were in Seattle, Washington, a part of the LBQT community there and Kimmy a proud owner of a bakery like she’d always wanted. Becca was planning to take a trip with him there around Thanksgiving, if there weren’t any problems around them, so he could see them again.

Janet had died in the late 70’s.

A heavy frown was on his face as he thought about Janet, because Becca had looked  _ very _ unhappy as she’d relayed that her death had been reported, and noted by a coroner, but the cause of death had been  _ lacking _ . At best, they’d deemed it a  _ suspicious _ death, but the rash of disturbance calls called out to the house and the medical reports that followed in short order usually lead more to the idea that it had been spousal abuse taken too far.

Becca was looking into that, but it would take her some time to prove as more than conjecture due to Janet’s husband holding some rank in the military, the reports being scattered across hundreds of military bases and most of the disturbance reports being done by Military Police, if made at all as other than being noted as a call going out that way. That wasn’t even including how Becca only had a few reports really, as most, if there were more but they were sure there were, were still paper-only files.

Considering the snafu that was the Brooklyn Bratva’s shadow war on whoever was holding who they were sure was Bucky, they didn’t have the resources – or the delicacy considering tempers were running hot on one of their own having been taken and held against their will then turned into somebody’s private elite soldier – to be hunting down proof of a grade-A asshole abusing and ultimately killing his wife. So, Becca had enlisted the aid of a local Private Investigator, with promise of paying for any airfare she thought necessary to retrieving proof.

Instead of letting him on  _ that _ – rightly knowing that he would wheedle and harass then walk onto whatever military base Janet’s bastard of a husband was on and punch him out, and Becca didn’t want to have to bribe military officials to look the other way because scrawny little him managed to minimally  _ shatter _ a jaw and knock – Becca had arranged for him to meet Janet’s daughter.

They were going to get coffee on campus.

Steve was honestly looking forward to meeting Doctor Elizabeth Ross, even if he would only understand  _ maybe _ half of what she knew about cellular biology, even  _ after _ reading up on it some in preparation.

He’d even brought a couple of Janet’s books, published under the name  _ John Chorine _ , because he was proud of her work, even if her dedications made him sad.

They also made him snicker because he could just about imagine the light blush that would have come to Bucky’s face at having something dedicated to him, because while Bucky acted as if it was his God-Given right just to be  _ that _ awesome, actual praise and compliments put color in his cheeks in a way the crudest description of sex couldn’t. It honestly had been a favorite activity – even if it had been hard because Bucky would often just redirect it his way – to compliment Bucky just for that blush.

Bucky hadn’t been what most what considered  _ cute _ since before they’d become friends, but when he  _ blushed _ , it was a completely different story. He looked  _ bashful _ , and while his smile on the surface said  _ cocky _ , there was a soft pleased edge to it that put him straight into  _ cute _ territory.

He’d ordered his coffee – something Bucky would sputter and insist  _ wasn’t _ coffee with how much sugar and creamer and overall  _ sweetness _ was in, even as he, on the sly, indulged his sweet tooth and got one just like it – and had picked a nice corner booth with a view of the door to wait.

He’d just taken his first sip, humming a little under the burst of  _ sweet _ , because maybe he’d developed a bit of his own sweet tooth since he’d been back in New York, when he saw a woman – who looked so much like Janet that it almost physically  _ hurt _ – enter with a man.

He watched how the man had hunched his shoulders slightly, fiddling with his thick-framed glasses and following tentatively behind Dr. Ross, recognizing a bit of the behavior as anxiety, and smiled brightly at them, trying to put him at ease, “Dr. Ross! Over here, I’ve gotten us a table big enough for us and your friend.”.

Steve saw the moment that his appearance – his short blonde hair with a fresh streak of deep purple by the bangs courtesy of Clint, pinned back by little child’s star barrettes in blue and white, his sweetheart earrings, and one of Clint’s tees, this one  _ Straight Outta Brooklyn _ , paired with a long deep blue plaited skirt with matching kitten heels – put the man at ease. The man had even quirked a small smile at the big plush hawk-shaped backpack by his leg.

Dr. Ross smiled, before going to order both her own and her friend’s drinks, gently shooing her friend over, “I’ll be right over, Mister Barnes.”.

Steve stood, ignoring how the other man had at least almost a head’s worth of height on him, and held out a hand, smiling, “I’m Steve Barnes, and you are?”.

The man fiddled with his glasses, keeping eye contact with the ground, “Dr. Bruce Banner. Betty brought me along because she was coming to meet you and she wanted me to get a little time out of the lab.”.

Steve didn’t let his smile drop as he casually reached for his own drink when his hand wasn’t shaken, taking a sip, “It’s nice to meet you, Dr. Banner. It’s fine, my Bucky used to drag me along everywhere when we were younger ‘just to get you out of the apartment, Steve!’. Except with more cursing, because we were born and raised in Brooklyn.”.

Bruce quirked a bit of a smile at that, before pulling out a seat for Dr. Ross as she returned, “Green tea for us, Bruce, because the rest of the caffeinated world doesn’t prefer your specialty teas and I’m too lazy to make some right now.”. She smiled at Dr. Banner in thanks for the seat, before sitting down, patting the one next to her to get the awkward doctor to sit down, then looked directly at him, “So, Mr. Barnes, your phone call said you wanted to meet me because of my mother, but why exactly did you want to meet  _ me _ even after finding out she’d been dead almost thirty years?”.

Steve glanced down at his coffee, smile fading, “I’d known all the Captain America showgirls when we were younger. I was looking to meet up with them again, to catch up after all these years. I’d found while trying to track them down that Janet had died.”.

His smile wobbled but stayed as he reached into the backpack Clint had let him borrow, and pulled out a handful of worn paperbacks, “During which I stumbled across these,”, laying them on the table for the other two to look at because Dr. Ross looked like she didn’t recognize them, “and thought that at the least, I would pay respects to her family.”.

Janet had deserved so much more than she’d gotten, and it hurt a little that her daughter had never known she’d written novels, even if they were under a pseudonym.

Dr. Ross lifted one particular dog-eared novel,  _ The Soldier’s Sweetheart _ , eyeing it, “Why do you think my mother wrote these? These are basically soft smut, and my mother was far too quiet to think about this, let alone publish it.”.

Steve pointed out a dedication,  _ To Jamie Rogers and Steph Barnes, may your next lives let you be together _ , and smiled sadly, “Because I’m Steph Barnes. She wrote this dedication when she thought I’d died after my soldier had gone MIA.”.

Dr. Ross blinked, looking at the publication date,  _ 1974 _ , then up at him, skeptical as he looked to  _ maybe _ be in his thirties and barely older than the two of them if that.

Steve smiled, “I’m older than I look. You can say I age  _ extremely well _ . Like I was frozen in time in my youth.”, before moving putting his novels back in his bag. Dr. Banner spoke up, having flipped through  _ the Soldier’s Sweetheart _ a little out of curiosity as Dr. Ross narrowed her eyes a little, catching that there was  _ something else _ he was meaning there, “She was writing about you and your male lover, wasn’t she?”.

For the first time, Dr. Banner met his eyes without immediately looking away, and Steve pulled out Bucky’s dog tags a little for them to see, “Pretty much. Not quite an autobiography, but she’d listened to me tell enough stories about Buck that she knew him fairly well without ever meeting him. She also gave us a happier ending than we ever got, because in real life, Buck went MIA during the war after falling from a train in the high mountains, and I came home after decades in foreign seas.”.

~

Steve was returning from his visit at Culver University when Becca texted him.

Instead of returning to Bed Stuy, he headed out to Queens.

He found himself smiling as he walked to where an old friend lived now, before he was in front of an apartment, hesitating on ringing the doorbell.

He was about to turn away, thinking better on just dropping in instead of giving a call ahead, when a startled voice spoke up behind him, “Steve, is that you?”.

He turned around with a lopsided smile, “May, it’s good to see you again.”.

She laughed, “My, you look good for your age! You’ll have to tell me your secret.”, smile only a little wobbly as she opened the door to her apartment, “Come on in, we have a lot to catch up on before my husband and nephew get home and I introduce you.”.

~

Steve was exhausted after a rather eventful day, and had just slumped down on the coach when he heard a rather loud sneeze upstairs.

He leaned back, taking off his shoes as he did, “Clint, is that you?”.

There was a sniffle, and a stuffy voice yelled back, “YEAH, STEVE.”.

He paused, used to Clint randomly taking out his hearing aids and not quite regulating his own volume well after, but Clint didn’t sound good. He recognized those sounds  _ well _ , “Are you sick Clint?”.

There was another sniffle, then another sneeze, before a loud whine, “ _ NOOOO TISSUES WHY _ ”.

Steve sighed, and was getting back up when the front door slammed open and the woman he’d seen only on occasion since their meeting, usually lounging about Clint’s part of the building, barged in carrying a large pot.

Even before she spoke, his nose wrinkled at the heavy scent of vodka and traditional Russian spices, “CLINT! GET YOUR SCRAWNY ASS UP!”.

He knew it wasn’t exactly his place to interfere, but he felt he had to for the sake of Clint’s liver, “Ma’am, are you sure that stew will help?”.

There was a loud thump before another loud whine, “TAAAASSSSHHHAAA, ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME WITH YOUR COOKING AGAIN?”.

The woman’s eyes narrowed, “ _ Again _ ? It’s your weak American system. Not a  _ drop _ of Russian in you. Makes it easy for you to get sick, then you can’t handle the remedy.”.

Steve noticed that even Lucky, who would beg at the scent of any human food even if pizza was his absolute favorite, gave her stew a large breadth of space from where he leaned against his leg.

There was a loud whine, “BEEEDDDDD, NOOOOO, WWWHHHHYY?”, and Natasha gave a rather flat, unimpressed look, cutting Clint off, “BED WHY DO-“”CLINT THE BED ISN’T TRYING TO KILL YOU.”.

There was a loud thump, rattle, then Clint poked his head out of his room at the top of the stairs, hair looking like a bird’s nest, skin flushed except where it was pale, and he sniffled pathetically, “TAAAASSSSHHHAAAA,”, holding out his arms like a toddler demanding to be carried, wobbling a little as he was a bit light-headed.

Her face softened a little around the eyes, “ _ Ptyenyetz _ , I hope you know that if you get me sick, I’m going to make you regret it.”, even as she walked towards him after putting her stew down.

Steve stepped forward without thought, half wanting to offer to pick Clint up himself because Natasha was  _ not _ a big woman, but held himself back because he’d been there. Bucky had always let him  _ try once _ , even as he protested about how they were pushing his luck, to do things himself.

He didn’t think Clint would ask if some part of him didn’t think Natasha capable of picking him up.

There was also the fact that despite being almost entirely lean muscle, Clint didn’t actually weigh that much for his size.

It still made his eyes pop a little to see her scoop Clint up, blanket burrito and all, and carry him bridal-style down the stairs without strain, Clint tucking his head into Natasha’s neck.

He knew it shouldn’t because he could probably carry both of them with ease even at his current size, and he’d already figured out that neither were exactly standard – were in fact both high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and that came with a certain level of physical competency he’d come to understand.

He moved aside as Natasha set him down on the couch gently, then she started to talk rapid-fire in Russian as her hands flew through signs, lecturing him about  _ foolish hawks who should have sought shelter when- _

Steve blinked for a second at the rest of her phrase-  _ the sky begins to piss like a twice-damned French-lush after too many bottles of wine _ .

It made him think of Jaq, and how the man would have  _ laughed _ at that, before snickering that it was  _ such _ an  _ insightful _ metaphor, but at least he wasn’t a  _ thrice-damned Englishman _ .

It made him smirk even as Clint whined, “UNIVERSE, WHY DO YOU SEND RUSSIANS WHO HAVE IT OUT FOR ME?”, particularly as Natasha shoved the whole pot of stew at Clint and ‘helped’ him start to eat it.

The scene reminded him of Wilhelmina’s stew that had helped him survive more than one pneumonia, and how Bucky had taken none of his shit.

Seeing them interact like he’d once with Bucky still made his heart ache with  _ what had been _ and  _ what could have been again _ , but it was a different sort of ache now.

He could appreciate it for knowing what it was like, that special bond of two stars in eternal orbit of each other, and want to protect them. He wanted to give them a chance that he’d been denied with Bucky, to have that  _ happily-ever-after _ as he chased the hope that Bucky lived.

He moved forward to stand next to Natasha, and added to her lecture with his own Russian and ASL, about  _ grown men that try to sneak in and hide they don’t feel well before nearly fainting while trying to stand up straight without support don’t get to complain about people caring about them _ . Then reached over to where Lucky had shown his loyalty by flopping over Clint’s blanketed legs, pushed him down towards Clint’s feet before going to make some of Wilhelmina’s stew.

It didn’t take long as Steve had already make the base and just needed to add a few things and leave it simmer on the stove for an hour while Natasha put on a recorded bird documentary for Clint to watch.

Leaving her to hover his shoulder, watching as he added one spice then another.

And carefully ignoring how being sick had seemed to destroy Clint’s self-preservation instincts as he decided to tell her about a meme he’d read while trolling around social media, “Have you seen this meme Tasha? It says: Can’t trust any girl named Natasha because Natasha spelt backwards is ‘Ah Satan’.”. Even if her lips quirked a little in amusement, and they both took careful note of how he was already sounding much better despite still sniffling pretty badly.

He may have smirked a little when she’d tested his stew, closing her eyes a little to savor it, before moving to move her stew onto the counter away from Clint. Then had bowled up his stew and renewed her mission to force-feed Clint until he was full.

Once Clint had passed out, warm and fed, with the quiet sounds of wild hawks playing in the background while he lay wrapped in his blanket burrito with Lucky laying across his legs again and licking his bowl clean, Natasha grabbed his pot and a spoon, sat on the arm of the couch next to Clint’s head, and changed the channel.

She seemed engrossed in watching the ballet while eating his stew even as one hand had rested on Clint’s head, lazily playing with a few strands of blonde hair, so he’d turned away from the scene and started making another batch of the stew for her to take back to her home.

Leaving him unaware that he’d proceeded to charm her with how he’d cared for her most precious person, and his stew.

He’d turned around, about to step closer out of concern when Clint had whimpered quietly, “Barney, don’t go . .”, to see that she’d started petting back his hair and sung very softly a familiar Russian lullaby, “ _ Спи, младенец мой прекрасный, _ _ Баюшки-баю  _ . .”.

He smiled softly and left them to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ptyenyetz: Nestling
> 
> The lullaby there at the end is: Bayushki bayu.  
> I found it at: http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=1044.
> 
> No wordplay for this title. I felt it very . . apt . . for what most of this chapter is about.
> 
> I'm curious, has anyone figured out who the various showgirls are related to?  
> (May, Grace, Ely/Elizabeth, Cathy/Catherine, Danny, Janet - are the ones with MCU relations. Kimmy technically as well, because she's Danny's life-partner. And there was an eighth - Cindy - but she wasn't really close with the rest.)


End file.
